Why play 1. f4?

As for the Bird's record, let it be known that Bird first tried out his opening in a multiple game series against JH Blackburne, A much stronger player than he. He lost most times, and it has rarely ever been played since. It is low in popularity, and nobody understands the goals of the Opening. Hence, loss.

The refutation to 1. f4 is 1. ...d4, where the extra tempo in a dutch defense is useless and allows Black to respond to your setup, not the other way around. You have first move disadvantage in this situation. Which is why dutch variations of the opening are very favorable for Balck.

Surprisingly, the only truly good response to 1. ...d5 is 2. b3, where after Bb2, d4, Nf3, etc. white exerts powerful control over the dark squares. This usually has white attempting a light bishop sacrifice, where he will be ahead in claiming dark squares, castling kingside to bring the rook onto the f file, and hopefully establishing an outpost on d5 where he controls the center and the kingside.

Well 1. e4 and 1. d4 naturally control the center immediately so I think people tend to use them instead. The Bird was discarded as "original chess garbage" by some people but you do prove a good point birdbrain.

Birdbrain, I know that there is one fatal weakness to 1. f4: your opponent foresees your plans. Your opponent will try to either break your attempted pawn structure or control your weak squares.

Chess, that is untrue.  I have MANY plans up my sleeve.  Here are a few that I use beginning with 1. f4.

Trust me, I have ENOUGH original positions in the Bird to fall back on - these are just a few types I use.  There are others too, but no sense in posting them all.  The simple idea is I believe 1. f4 is very flexible in spite of its weaker reputation, and that it deserves more credit than it gets.  It does offer me plenty of ideas.  The trick is not trying to force a particular one, but rather to go with the flow. 

Birdbrain,

You can give all the personal annotation and statistics that you want, but the real statistics from high-level games do not lie.  This is an inferior opening.  That is a fact.

Now, that is not to say that it is not playable, fun, or interesting.  Also, I am sure that it might be somewhat more effective than traditional openings against weak players since they are likely to fall into traps that they are unfamiliar with.  

Nevertheless, objectively speaking, the opening stinks.

It is logical some to see it as a bad,  easy to predict , opening but that is far from true.Players like Bent Larsen and Ljubomir Ljubojevic have employed it regularly , and there are others, not so well known , still very good players(Bo Jacobsen drew against Karpov with Bird) , that also used it as their main opening.

 Not surprisingly it is very popular  in correspondence chess.Argentinian champion Julio Alberto Muhana  won the World Correspondence Champion and theoretician  Yakov Estrin with it and there are a lot correspondence masters and champions that had it as their main opening .That clearly means , not of course that it is the best opening in the world , but that there is a lot of room for creativity and originality there, as it is , practically , an uncharted territory.

   BirdBrain did something very few of us do.Used his brain.He wasn't satisfied by imitating Kramnik or Carlsen and decided to find something that will give him the chance to be creative.If Dutch defense still considered a sound opening(last time I checked there was no refutation) why Bird shouldn't?

   Yes , it has not been played by top class players the last 30 years but so does other openings like Dutch defense or Alekhine's defense.When was the last time you saw Alekhine's defense in a top-class tournament?I bet no one remembers but what does that mean , that it has been refuted?Not last time I checked. 

Some say "Bird's opening gives black an easy equality" , so very true indeed.

So what? Does ever a slight edge (or even an advantage)in the opening played any role in the result  in your games?Are your opponents so good that you can't win them if the position is equal?

  There are only 2 categories of openings, the first category are the good openings and the second category are the bad openings:

1st  Category  : Openings you undersand

2nd Category  : Openings you don't understand

Honestly, it does not make any difference what anybody says.  Everyone can argue random positions all day long, but it's meaningless in light of the hard statistics.

Again, anybody can play whatever opening they want to play and whichever one they find most fun or interesting.  There is absolutely no problem with that.  But arguing that it is as good as d4 or e4 is just plain wrong.  There is plenty of data to support this proposition.

1.f4 can be better than 1.e4 and 1.d4 .You want data? GM Danielsen has better score with it than the others.Isn't that data? 

We try to make you realise  , not that 1.f4 is the best, but that it can be the best, because "data" don't play chess, you do , so what you understand can be a deadly weapon , not only for your opponent but also for "data".  

1) A single grandmaster having a better score with f4 than d4 or e4 provides no support to the claim that f4 is better than d4.  Perhaps he is simply playing d4 poorly.

2)  Your second argument that "data don't play chess, you do" is nonsensical.  It is true that understanding "can be a deadly weapon", but you can just as easily apply the same argument to d4 or e4.

Playing f4 is for attempting to catch people off guard and hoping they don't know how to play against it.  I admit that it would probably work with me since I am a fairly weak player, but that does not make it good.

Agree..

etr40, tell that to Nakamura, who uses it on the Black side (Leningrad Dutch).  The reason many don't like it is the early committal of the f-pawn - they would rather play such a move later in the game, instead of one move 1.  There are MANY openings that use the Dutch-style pawn structures, only playing ...f5 on a later note.

I assume you have respect for the Pillsbury Attack?  I get a type of that in many of my 1. f4 games.  You may think it stinks, but I beg to differ.  Inferior?  No - maybe offbeat.  It is inferior in the same regard that the King's Indian Defense is inferior.  Don't judge it based on stats - judge it based on playability.  

If you ask pfren, who is anti-King's Gambit, then even playing 2. e4 against From's is silly, but many top-level players are playing the King's Gambit again.  Openings are like ocean waves, my friend.

Well, that may be true for you, and to a degree, it is true for me too.  But, my style is good for applying pressure on the kingside with 1. f4.  I use it for both offensive and defensive purposes.  In playing traditional 1. e4 and 1. d4 openings, I often give Black more room on my kingside than I prefer.  Those stats of the master games don't mean much if I cannot understand what is going on.

etr40, I never said it was as good as 1. d4 or 1. e4.  I did quote Danielsen, who quoted a Russian GM (don't remember the name - maybe Beliavsky) who said it is just a normal move.  

Here is my stance on it quickly - it does not support piece development like 1. d4 or 1. e4, and it slightly weakens the kingside.  Those are weaknesses (every opening has weaknesses, even 1. d4 and 1. e4).  What strengths do I gain in exchange for that?  I gain kingside space, which fits with my style of play.  I save a tempo on playing Nf3-pick a square-f4-Nf3 type positions.  I can easily consolidate my diagonals via 2. Nf3 and 3. e3, which eliminates many of the pesky threats (this is one weakness of 1. e4 that 1. f4 trumps - I can cover the a6-f1 diagonal with e3, whereas you must shore up the diagonal another way).  Another plus to 1. f4 is that I have added control of e5, so I can take back easily.  In the King's Gambit, White cannot take immediately on e5 - in From's Gambit, he can, as e4 has not yet been played, so the Qh4+-Qe4 sortie fails to g3 and Nf3.  Another plus is that my pawns are not normally committed.  In one of my favorite variations, the Stonewall, my biggest liability is the e-pawn, which sits at e3. There are a few ways to handle this.  One is to play Ne5 (which stifles Black's ...e5) and then push e3-e4, trading off my backward pawn.  Also, if Black decides to trade on d4 with c5xd4, I can take back with my e-pawn, and I have a beautiful outpost for my knight on e5.

I could keep going, but I gain enough plusses with 1. f4 to counter the weaknesses I create.  It is worth the trade-off.  The biggest trade-off?  YOU HAVE LESS BOOKS OF THEORY AT YOUR DISPOSAL TO USE AGAINST ME.  If I lose, it is often not because of some trick you have up your sleeve - it is me and you playing chess.  Just like in Chess960 - no books, no theory - just chess.  I can often do better against an opponent with Chess960 than with regular chess if they are stronger than me.  I have a friend who could beat me regularly in his normal chess lines, but I played 960 with him once and trounced him.  I was more comfortable in the unfamiliar waters, and was able to find good ideas.

One last plus (I don't think I mentioned this yet) is that my pawns are not easy targets.  In 1. e4 setups, Black has ideas to target the weak e-pawn.  Also in 1. d4, Black has setups like the Nimzo-Indian to cripple the pawn structure.  It is not the end of the world, but White is making concessions in his position - these are imbalances, and tradeoffs.  In 1. f4, what are you going to attack?  My f-pawn?  You must either play 1...e5 or 1...g5, and be willing to sack a pawn for some play.  Either opening is okay to play for Black, but I hope you get my point. 

pfren, I TOTALLY agree with you here.  I don't have hours to invest, and I have a decent grasp of the ideas here.  Therefore, 1. f4 is a good choice for a guy like me. 

People act as if they can take advantage of one move. If you played 1 a4, you wouldn't be doing much, but the level of logic doesn't necessarily correlate (with how bad your position becomes) as strongly as one may think. For example, in a sharp position, your move has to make a lot of sense or you lose -- fair enough; in a closed position though, it's kind of difficult to lose just because of one illogical move. From the start of the game, it's pretty hard to say that even after 1 a4 that white's position just collapses without difficulty. It's just so much more important that you play well for the other 46 moves.

Carlsen plays openings, sometimes, that he knows lead to equality; Aronian plays 1 d4 d5 2 c4 e6 3 Nc3 Nf6 4 Nf3 Be7 5 Bf4, and after that I think he develops his light bishop and just castles. He himself openly states how he doubts white gets an advantage out of that line; I can't highlight enough just how completely contradictory this is to the idea that Grandmasters always need opening advantages. I really can't. He knows the line extremely well, but he knows it's unlikely to yield an advantage. Therefore, he plays it!

After 1 f4, white's position would take years to collapse, if followed by strong play, and I just don't see how you could ever think otherwise. My biggest problem with 1 f4 is not that white is in trouble, but that black probably has an easier route to equality -- black's not always permitted to have a pawn in the center (d5) without serious pressure on it. How on earth though could anyone argue that it's anything more than a minor issue?

Pfren, I agree.  I treat this as a cousin of From's Gambit, with 2. Nf3.  If 2...Bg4 (which I could almost smell you thinking about, then I think 3. e4 would be most accurate, with h3 to follow.  

Even going deeper into that, if 2...g6, then still 3. e3 preparing a Stonewall.  Some Bird players would handle this type of idea with a d3-e4-g3-Bg2 approach, which is also acceptable.  Of course, Black could also play ...c5 early.  But either way, a universal approach to that type of position (which I do play) would be 2. Nf3, 3. d3 and either 4. e4, or 4. e3 or 4. g3 (depending on Black's play) playing into a type of Polar Bear or Closed Sicilian position.

I don't care for his opening of the pieces.  9. Ne2 and 10. Kd1 - totally not my style. I would prefer to keep the option open of Qf2 to keep contact with c2 in case of Nb4, and let the knight be able to travel to either e4 or d1 in case of ...d4.    

Up until 9. Ne2, this looked like a type of position I would play.  Can you please explain the idea of 9. Ne2?  I would give that a ?! in my opinion.  It does not take care of the bishops, the king is still in the middle of the board.  Me personally, I wonder if he was trying for Ne2-g4 to monitor g3 at the cost of having to manually castle.  Just looks too superficial to me.  

I wouldn't even mind playing either Be2 (would prefer to put it on g2 actually, with either g4 or g3), and put the queen bishop probabyl on d2.  Might play 0-0 in these type of positions.  g4 is probably too ambitious, maybe g3 is better with Bg2, if Nb4 or Nd4, then Qf2 to eyeball c2.

Thoughts on this?

I know Ne2 prevented Nd4, but I cannot see why not just be ready to bring the queen to f2, and play maybe g3-Bg2?