Is 1.f4 a playable opening?

It turns out that there are many openings in chess.

Had another fun Bird-Larsen game against one of the bots (SapnapBot, said to be 1000, but that's bot rating not human). Was a fun game, and the review only gave me two inaccuracies, so I was pleased with that.

Its definitely playable.
But on f4 e5 - the From Gambit - fxe is fine for white. 
The f4 player should be prepped for e5 though.
But what about comparing the Bird with the Dutch Defense?
Or - comparing f4 d5 with d4 f5 ....?
If the Dutch is good - surely the Bird should be better?
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But white is playing a reversed opening he didn't have to ...
if such openings are really great - they'd be played more ... but apparently white does better with d4 or e4 or c4 or Nf3.
d4 'can use' c4 soon after. Its usually good - or best.
e4 can also 'use' f4 soon after - but its usually really good only with certain move orders like e4 c5 Nc3 Nc6 f4.
So the objection to 1) f4 seems to be - white's got better.
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Idea: 1) e4 is played much more than f4 for a similiar reason to 1) d4 played more than c4.
But 1) c4 is played more than 1) f4 ... also.
1) f4 doesn't help with bishop development. Nor Queen-action. Not directly.
whereas 1) c4 does help the Queen.
I like 1) Nf3. Lets put the brakes on black's e-pawn plus develop a piece plus prepare castling plus take the opponent out of about 95% of his book plus give him no immediate pawn target.
So the Bird seems to relate more to openings where white plays a pawn to his third rank on move 1.

I am actually contemplating of taking the Bird as an additional opening to my now very small opening repertoire, i.e. the Orang-Utasn with 1. b4. I have one study book now "Bird's opening" from Timothy Taylor from 2006.

Anything else recommended on literature?

Ordered Lakdawala's "Bird's Opening: Move by move" from 2015 as well and saw there is a recent book from Haley (2022) with unusual replies to 1. f4 called "Unusual Birds: Bird's Opening: Unusual & seldom played variations that start with 1.f4"

Ordered the latter one as well

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.

Hi I have a feeling that must have been a very fast time control!

Not necessarily, since the Dutch is a reaction to 1. d4. I tend to play c5 and e6 against Bird's. A similar case is the Budapest Gambit, where black plays e5 as a reaction to white's c4. We know that without c4 having been played, e5 as a reaction to 1. d4 is pretty terrible. I imagine that f5 as a reaction to 1. c4 shouldn't be all that good and I used to play the English, which is highly transpositional; and had a good win rate against 1. ...f5.

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.

Yes it's a reasonable try, to play the Dutch against the English. There are actually some weird openings where white has played c4 and f4 and those moves are mirrored by black, often in reverse order. I analysed them 10 years ago and couldn't find much other than it was a bit clumsy and a bit of an edge for white but not much. It certainly knocks me for six because I play 2. e4 against the Dutch, which is very good for white in practice. I have to fall back on c4 d4 Nc3 g3 Bg2 Nh3 0-0 etc which is ok for white and which I quite like.

There was a guy called Graham Lilley and he was world Blind Chess Champion and anyway he taught me a setup for white against the Stonewall and Colle. It's amazingly powerful and easy to play. I usually win against the Stonewall although it's drawn with best play.

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).