Bird F4 is my favorite opening.

any other F4 players and why?

Because this is rarely used and surprises most opponents. Was first played by Henry Edward Bird in 1855 full details below;  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird%27s_Opening#:~:text=The%20British%20master%20Henry%20Edward,f4.

Stéphane Malo

If you’re playing f4, might as well press the ALT key too…

-Wise internet user

I used to play the birds opening (543 games on chess.com) when i was around 1700-2000 on chess.com. I have never played it in a serious otb tournament game (I played it once against an 1100, but I was rated 2040, so I don't think that counts as a serious game).

I learned it because after I learned it, there wasn't much else to learn. I just had to play better chess than my opponent, and didn't have to compete in a memory contest (which many people my age are very good at! I didn't really appreciate it until someone rattled out 15 moves of sideline kalashnikov theory against me last weekend. I lost.) 

I played the leningrad (g3) bird. Because it is better. Classical is lame, no ambition at all :)

I stopped playing it, though, when a national master exploited the move order to win against me twice. After all, I want to be a NM, and to get there, I have to beat them, and if a college professor has time to prepare against me, then I should play something better.

BTW the move order was:

I played it a little bit on Lichess but was not winning consistently. As soon as I was able to get a positive win rate, I stopped playing it. I've been learning the English and it has been a lot better

Why did you stop after your winrate went up? That was clearly a sign of you getting the hang of the opening. You should take it as encouragement to continue.

(sorry for bump, though technically EKAFC did it first)

Where's the problem? You can beat NM's with the Bird, provided that you will not drop pawns in the opening. You can beat no good player when you play the opening on autopilot, though.

This concept has some bite in the Dutch, with colors reversed. As played, first you can play 5.d3 instead of 5.0-0 and follow up with a quick Nc3 and e4, and second 5.0-0 Qb6+ 6.d4 is nothing for Black- actually I think I would prefer being white, and try throwing in a quick c2-c4.

We actually played again with the bird in online 25+5 after that game. He played the same thing, and I played 5.d3 as you said, but he played Qb6 anyways. I wasn’t comfortable with playing Nc3 and e4 without having castled first or something, so I chose to play e3 and later I simply had a worse stonewall position.

White should be fine on principle, but it’s a lot of thinking which I don’t want to do in the opening. In any case I’ve switched to the less provocative 1.Nf3, which has been working, at least.

Unrelated, but During the time we played I was also around 1600 USCF and had a bad habit of switching openings every game thinking someone was going to “prep” for me. The 1600 rating showed, honestly.

Castling is needed if/when your king is under presure in the center- not the case here.

I think Qb6 is more or less a waste of time after 5.d3. An example featuring two correspondence grandmasters, so you can be sure the game has very few errors. White got a clear advantage out of the opening, and converted it in style.

I didn't like it but I didn't want to have a negative win rate for my White openings. Also, a lot of them I got very lucky because I was dead lost but won on time