Latvian Gambit: what should White play?

In the Latvian Gambit (ECO C40), White achieves the strongest objective advantage by playing Nxe5, which holds an engine evaluation of +1.50 and yields a 51.6% scoring rate across 1.94M recorded games. Black's aggressive thrust allows White to capture the central pawn immediately and exploit weaknesses along the kingside diagonal. While White has multiple playable choices, capturing on e5 poses the most direct test of Black's speculative setup.

White's main continuation with Nxe5

Although Nxe5 appears in 27.0% of the 7,207,188 games reached at this position, engines favor it above all alternatives. An illustrative continuation runs Nxe5 Qf6 Nc4 fxe4 Nc3 Qf7, where White retreats the knight to c4 before targeting Black's overextended pawn structure. This path secures a stable space advantage while avoiding the tactical chaos Black seeks.

The popular capture exf5

The most frequent choice in the database is exf5, chosen in 42.5% of games (3.06M recorded). Despite its frequency, it scores lower for White at 48.9% with an evaluation of +1.24. The sample continuation exf5 e4 Nd4 Qf6 Nb5 Qe5 demonstrates how Black attempts to gain counterplay against White's knight on d4 and active central presence.

Other developing alternatives

White also possesses sound developing options in Nc3 and Bc4. Opting for Nc3 is chosen in 12.1% of games (875K recorded) and evaluates at +1.31, leading toward lines like Nc3 fxe4 Nxe5 Nf6 Ng4 Be7. Meanwhile, Bc4 appears in 9.6% of encounters (692K recorded) with a +1.03 evaluation, pointing toward sharp play such as Bc4 fxe4 Nxe5 d5 Qh5+ g6. Finally, the central strike d4 is played in 8.8% of recorded games (633K recorded) with an evaluation of +0.55.