The birds opening

A good friend of mine plays the Bird opening religiously. He is rated 1800-1900 regularly, which for all intents and purposes, is pretty good. It may not be popular at master levels, but that doesn't mean it won't happen at master levels. It can be an effective tool to throw an opponent off because while it may not be the best, it may also not be studied by your opponent very much, so its practicality in that sense more than makes up for it weakness.

It provides its own advantages that black still has to defend against. Most people will just say it is bad because it isn't 1 of the 3 main opening pawn moves without understanding it. 

my favourite.

and the kings Gambit is nothing to be afraid of.

you are not gonna lose a game because you played `1.f4. You forfeit first move advantage though, but we all must pick our poisons. Do you want to outbook your opponents or play chess? (although interestingly, if you become any good at chess playing the funky stuff, you will be doing just as much homework, just more like of branches of smaller sidelines instead of 15 move book lines)

@poo_plop what is the hedgehog defense?

@an_asparagusic_acid but isn't that against the english? (I play hedgehog against english, so I was confused)

I don't think you forfeit the first move advantage, but yes I will have to know theory (especially in From's). 

if first move advantage is 0.25 (most people put FMA at between 0.2-0.33,) bird is probably 0-0.1 as with most not bad secondary white openings if you exclude more mainstream transpositions 

You can definitely lose a game from giving black a long term pleasant advantage that white should not be able to equalize.  Especially in this case with clear and well known plans that borrow from some of the most popular openings / defenses in chess. 

and white already feels bad

You can definitely lose a game from giving black a long term pleasant advantage that white should not be able to equalize.  Especially in this case with clear and well known plans that borrow from some of the most popular openings / defenses in chess. 

and white already feels bad

The bust to the birds opening was the line shown in my earlier post.  This is black attempting to play the pure slav but having equally bad chances as the bird.   It's an analogy,   if black wanted to play Bf5 he needed to precede it with Dc to prevent the Qb3 idea.  If white wants to play F4 as the birds opening,  he needs to wait for black to have something on e5 or black just gets a great game.   Would you like to play an unrated game in the birds opening,  you can use engine assistance and I won't?    You won't win and you might lose.

Then we're back to the rated games until you get white.    I'm sure it would take a 2700 + to play the bird against me with serious chances.  If it's not as bad as I think it is i'd like you to show me