1.f4!

Resign. It's hopeless. (jk) ^_^

During 2004-2008 there are 124 games in my database with 1. f4 where both players were rated 2400+. Many of those White players were GMs and a number of them seem to use the Bird on a somewhat regular basis.

That tells me that Bird's Opening is sound and playable.

Black played From's Gambit 1. ... e5 only 10 times in those 124 games. That tells me that strong players do not think the From is a standout option for Black.

Weak White players often get rolled by the From, strong players don't fall  for the sucker punches.

It was all the rage for a while in the 19th century.  Black players learned effective ways to meet it and it lost a lot of its bite.  There are some specialists who use it effectively even at high levels now but at least in part because it is less familiar for Black as e4 or d4 or Nf3 or c4.

According to my (kept-up-to-date-with-This-Week-in-Chess) database Danielsen has played 1.f4 just 3 times since November of 2006. Going +1 -2 =0 with the lone win coming against an A-player.

Danielsen's last 1.f4 came summer 2008: a losing effort against a player 110 rating points below him playing a From's gambit line that Emanuel Lasker originated! Which makes f4 sound awful, but looking over the game I don't think Danielsen comes out of the opening all that bad! He just gets outplayed. It's an interesting game, worth a look:

Danielsen loses with f4...  there's no question about that.  he wins with it too.  i think that can be said about almost every opening at this level.  either you win, lose or draw right?  so zen.

f4 is really fun to play...

I think a draw would be in order. Helps solve problems....resigning works too

1. f4 is sound in the sense that if you play it well, you will get at least equality (which is pretty standard for a 'normal' white opening).

I'll recommend playing 1. ..d5 against it and treating it like you are playing against the dutch defense.

@richie_and_oprah

all talk and no arguments. Even Kramnik said that nowadays it is harder to prove a slight advantage as white than to get equality as black.
'good' openings give you chances for an advantage, but if your opponent plays the opening 'good' too, there's a large chance the position will just be equal. So no, a 'good' opening doesn't always lead to +=, but positions in the range of += to =.

Bird's opening will lead to positions around = most of the time, if both players play 'correct'. Inferior to 1. e4 and 1. d4 ? Probably. But a 'learning' player won't lose games because his first move was 'inferior'. I will agree that using a certain opening for too long cripples development.

You know what's dangerous? Not taking underrated openings seriously. Careless play lost me so many games against silly opening systems..