I need an opening for black vs. ev... tell me w...

Originally posted by paultopia
Yeah, I meant latvian. For some reason my brain wrote leningrad.

You may be on to something; it appears that White has had some difficulty historically in meeting 1. e4 e5 2. Bc4 f5 otb. I don't have a lot of material on it; 47 games, but Black is scoring 56% in the games I do have. It doesn't 'look' sound to me, but with results like that I'm going to have to take a closer look. It certainly has the advantage of surprise going for it, and could easily transpose into a Latvian or Mestel's variation, both of which I've played before.

Mestel's variation of the Philidor runs 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 f5. I like Larsen's variation, despite White's dangerous attack, but whenever I have the chance I transpose into Mestel's with the move order 1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 d6 3. d4 ed 4. Bc4 f5, a variation which is not bad for Black.