Is 1.f4 a playable opening?

I cover secondary (less common) moves against 1 f4 with lines 11 through 17 with my blog repertoire.

Lurching Chess - Chess.com

Here is a Bird Opening game I played this morning.

Good Chess! Keith

F4 for white and F5 for black are often very important moves in the middlegame.
Very often - in fact most of the time - one or both Kings are castled short on that side of the board.
And then the f4 pawn is the center and spearhead of the Kside attack.
With an e4 pawn (or advanced to e5 pawn) and a g4 pawn on either side of it.
White 'comes down' on the black position - and he supports his pawn attack heavily with his Queen and knight or knights and bishop or bishops - with or without his rooks getting into it too - or instead.

Without his g-pawn supporting his push to f5 - then the white pawn at f5 could often just be captured and then its black with a big pawn or piece at f5.
But with his g4 pawn backing up his f5 pawn - then that gpawn can recapture at f5 and becomes the new f5 pawn that's like an arrow sticking into the black position ...
unless it can be immediately punished then white can often 'mop up' even with black castlled long.
To understand 1) f4 better - it would help to understand why 1) d4 and 1) e4 are both better first moves. By understanding how they pertain better to the opening arrangement of the 32 pieces - which is called the Grand position.

I know GM Simon Williams thinks the Dutch against the English works very well. He plays the Classical Dutch a lot, and it's one of his mainstays, so he's going to do better with it than the average player. The Dutch is a hard opening to really master as the ideas and positions can be complicated and subtle, so one has to be willing to lose a lot of games developing their understanding of what the ideas are in the various lines, and often they can be quite different to each other.
Simon does occasionally plays Bird's, at least in online faster games if not serious classical tournament games, and as I recall after 1. f4 c5 he recommends an immediate 2. e4 ... with an eventual d3 at some point? (I think he recommends something similar against the English, something like 1. c4 f5 2. e3 e5 ... but I could be mistaken). Having watched a bunch of his streams and youtube content I know Simon really likes the combination of pawns on e4 and f4 (or e5 f5 in the Dutch) for attacking purposes and often focuses his play on trying to obtain that set up. 
Simon treats Bird's as a colour reversed Dutch, and so his Dutch Defence knowledge comes into play. Mind you, he tends to play the Dutch with e6 first, to avoid some annoying lines and the Staunton Gambit, so if White plays 2. e4 he switches to the French. With White, if after 1. f4 he gets the From's Gambit (1. ... e5) I think he just transposes to the King's Gambit, as he likes that too, as the option of starting with 1. e3 doesn't really work the way it does when doing similar with Black.

White does do better with f4 d5 and the Bird than black does with d4 f5 and the Dutch.
The extra move does Count.
Check the stats on the net.
Also - check logic.

If the argument against Bird's opening is that black can avoid a Dutch reversed - that's not much of an argument ...
Because either side can 'avoid' almost anything.
Can black prevent white playing a King's Indian attack from move 1?
Apparently not.
Can white prevent white playing a King's Indian Defense against anything white plays?
Maybe.
With e4 it seems. Then black might end up with a Pirc or a Modern or even a Sicilian if he tries for a 'King's Indian' kind of defense.
Since black can't prevent white playing a King's Indian Attack does that mean white should always play it?
No.
So the argument that a) f4 'fails' because black can avoid a Dutch reversed - by not responding d5 - in turn 'fails'.

Yah, 2. e4 is a tricky line for Black. I was playing the Dutch a lot back in the 90s and had booked up on it. And I was very pleased when the first time I beat one of the GM styles on the ChessMaster 4000 was playing Black against the Staunton Gambit. I remember being absolutely exhausted by the end of the game though, and was sweating bricks trying not to throw away a game I should win. I still have it (below; I annotated it with the CM6000 later, with longer time per move than during the game, which I think was at 10s/move for the computer. The CM wouldn't flag, so I would ignore the time control for myself. If not, I definitely would have been flagged this game! ). I stopped playing chess for about 15-20 years though, and I only got back into it a couple years ago, and it feels like I'm right back at the beginning. I don't have time to play or study a lot either, and it can be a bit frustrating at times to make mistakes I once had learned not to make! Sigh. I used to play the Stonewall, but have been trying the Classical (d6 instead of d5) set up lately, mostly due to Simon's videos on it give me something to learn from. I've never been able to get my head around the Leningrad Dutch though, and the set up just looks too scary for me as once White starts marching pawns down the Kingside, it just feels like that's the beginning of the end. The worst bit is that Black ends up with a set up much like the Leningrad in the Staunton Gambit lines, at least the ones I knew!

Nice game.
White's lightsquare bishop Doomed ...
with 19) - c6 by black the death knell ...

Thanks. I remember when I was learning that line (I think the CM's book ends on move 14), I spent ages looking at the position, and found I could push my QRP (a pawn) and if White grabs the pawn then Black could win the Bishop as per the game. I was very surprised, but pleased, when the CM walked into my prep! Unfortunately, I can't remember what my plan was if they didn't take the pawn, though; it might have been advance the b pawn, then try to target the d pawn with a bishop on b7, or something like bring out my Bishop to a6 and try and trade it off with a b-pawn advance; basically to try and get my Queenside pawns storming towards the White King and clear my home row so my rooks would be ready to find any open files.

The Staunton gambit is indeed perilous for both sides.
It is named after GM Staunton - after whom the styles of so many tournament chess sets of pieces in worldwide use are named.
'Staunton chess pieces.' 'Staunton chess set.'

Yes, from the 1800s, though of course there were no GM titles back then (I think the GM title came into existence in the 1950s), but Staunton was one of the biggest names of his time and for awhile considered the best player in the world (a sort of unofficial world chess champion; Steinitz was the first "official" world champion).

The GM title didn't start till the 1950's?
Well that's good to know!
Plus I knew Staunton was good - I didn't know he was the best. Or I forgot.
Another good one.

This makes me think - regarding famous gambits and other opening variations from great players from hundreds of years ago ...
have most of their plays survived the test of time? The Muzio - the Salvio and so on.
It might be hard to find out - since a play found to be too unsound would likely have become obscure and forgotten very quickly.
If there is a lot of such information available - could that be a way to study openings?
Games are decided by mistakes. Somebody has to make a mistake in order for somebody else to win ... yes I know its obvious but its often ignored ...

Science and math can be studied up to a point something like that ... what was known at whatever time - what wasn't - the implications of that and how discoveries led to other discoveries ...
unfortunately opening studies can become labyrinthine and without enough return on investment and many coaches know it so they also or instead concentrate on tactics and basic endings - so that their students might have some idea of what they're doing in the openings and middlegames.

In about 10 days a new ICCF correspondence tournament is going to start, single round robin, so this might be a good chance to enter this with three games with the Bird.

I am not prepared yet, but correspondence gives time to learn on the job.

It can be an expansion on my current 'limited' repertoire with White, playing another out of the box opening, i.e. the Orang-Utan with 1.b4.

Out of the 20 possible first moves by white -
Seven are Solid. Six are 'intermediate'. And seven 'look bad'.
1) b4 is intermediate. 
1) g4 'looks bad' but still wins against weak enough response.
1) f4 is one of the seven solid first moves.
But some of the other moves of those seven are better so are played more.

Regarding how to play b4 with white ...
does it hurt to think about one's opponent a bit?
Black has to face any of twenty first moves by white.
Your opponent with black has only so much time to study openings.
Chances are he won't be prepped for 1) b4 unless he plays it himself with white.
In which case you could be unlucky.

F4 is a move but can become the scholars and fools mate.

Quote:
In chess, scholar's mate is the checkmate achieved by the following moves, or similar:
1. e4 e5
2. Qh5 Nc6
3. Bc4 Nf6??
4. Qxf7#
Lol! Black has to defend his e-pawn so 2) - Nf6 doesn't work for black.

"The Danvers Opening[1] is an unorthodox chess opening characterized by the moves:
1. e4 e5
2. Qh5
It is also known as the Kentucky Opening,[2] Queen's Attack,[3] Queen's Excursion,[4] Wayward Queen Attack,[5] Patzer Opening,[6] and Parham Attack.[7]"
More often the opening is adopted by chess novices, as when actor Woody Harrelson played it against Garry Kasparov in a 1999 exhibition game in Prague.[12] Harrelson achieved a draw after being assisted by several grandmasters who were in Prague.
!!!
e4 e5
Qh5
What does black do? Hikaru Nakamura maintains that this opening is playable.

The Danvers looks better than the Napoleon opening.
The Napoleon is e4 e5 Qf3.
Black could just then play Nf6 and that's that.
e4 e5 Qh5.
Could be very annoying to black?
Well playing Nc6 shouldn't be painful for black - since its an e4 e5 opening.

You're right.
1) f4 is very playable.
Its one of the seven better moves of the 20.
And we've had over 200 posts now discussing that and subjects related to it.
With different people expressing different views on it.
Fortunately - no one person (except the opening poster and the staff) can insist on 'end of conversation' but some might so pretend. Nobody is forced to be here.
And 1) f4 will be continued to be discussed through 50 100 years from now and so on. Like other opening moves.

Like other opening moves - discussion of 1) f4 can be enhanced by comparing it with other opening moves.
Which means those moves get discussed too.