Don't go near it. Both sides are losing.
Do you really want to get involved in this. Game 5790180
The book is not very good. As for the variation, it's a lot of fun. I play it in blitz and always get a real fight. I'd be afraid to play it in a postal game though. The database age has taken a lot of fun out of the old variations. Also, when I analyzed it and played it, engines weren't as well developed/every Tom, Dick, and Harry didn't use one (for opening analysis and such). I can't speak for how well the variation holds, but it's cetrainly an exciting double edged variation. My experience from the white side is that you have to play passively for a long time and then consolidate. From the black side, you get a nice initiative with a lot of early threats. The problem is that if you don't keep the fire going and ease up for a move or two, white usually wiggles out. There is one more thing I should point out. Beware of h4 by white! When he plays this, he is threatening the cheeky Bg5 (black Qe7, Kd8) in the main line. 🙂
I've just played it without any success, but it's definitely a fun line creating very unbalanced positions. There must be a lot of theory, but it seems to me that both sides have several plausible ways to mobilise after the initial N raid to a8, so any game is likely to leave the beaten track quite quickly.
Is anyone interested in a thematic tournament?