Lesson
White to move. Main line: 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 f5 3. Nxe5 Qf6 4. d4 d6 5. Nc4 fxe4
The main line is honest chess: 3.Nxe5 wins the pawn, 3...Qf6 attacks the knight and eyes f2, and after 5.Nc4 fxe4 Black has traded structure for the half-open f-file and active pieces — the same currency the King’s Gambit spends, bought at a worse price.
White’s cleanest plan is unglamorous: 6.Nc3 Qg6 7.d5 (or 7.Ne3), develop, castle long or short depending on the raid, and let the extra pawn matter in the endgame. Trying to punish the Latvian tactically is how White loses to it.
The instructive contrast with the Evans or BDG: those gambits buy time; the Latvian buys a file at the cost of king safety. Playing through both teaches what compensation actually means — and why not all pawns cost the same.
The sharpest try: 3.Bc4: 3. Bc4 fxe4 4. Nxe5 Qg5 — both sides raid: the Poisoned Pawn maze where a single wrong move loses for either color.