Are the Dutch and Birds openings solid?

Back in the 80's and early 90's a gifted young lady named Mary Kuhner of Seattle climbed to the number 4 rank among American female players by playing the Bird's opening and Dutch defence almost exclusively. Her relentless kingside pawn storms, backed up by the fianchetto of the bishop, the other side of the board, and her kingside rook created a 1-2-3 punch that spelled doom even for a few solid I.M.'s Mary left the game in 1987 to pursue her research work at the Univ. of Washington (though she still makes an occasional appearance at the local chess club) but this leaves an open question: Are the Dutch and Birds openings solid enough to be part of a strong player's repertoire?

Nop.
Both openings looks like you first shoot yourself in the foot and then start 3000 m steeplechase race.

Originally posted by @vandervelde
Nop.
Both openings looks like you first shoot yourself in the foot and then start 3000 m steeplechase race.

GM Henrik Danielsen plays the "Polar Bear System", which is just the Bird.

Also Zuniga Granda (*last ear had 2699 but lost twice n a row in last morning 9th round of 2 opens and that proximity of 2700 sky frontier I think destroyed him for good; he is now 50 and he cannot recover from that; but it;s another story) plays it, but only against weaker opponents, as a mean of deceiving them, and sparing main variations for "real" opponents. Typical for open tours' sharks.-

But they are not solid.

The Dutch Stonewall is excellant..but the Bird's is crap..

The best way to answer both the Dutch and the Bird's is to play gambit style. So against the Dutch I always play the Staunton Gambit 2.e4 and against the Bird I play 1...e5, the From Gambit.

Originally posted by @sundown316
The best way to answer both the Dutch and the Bird's is to play gambit style. So against the Dutch I always play the Staunton Gambit 2.e4 and against the Bird I play 1...e5, the From Gambit.

The game explorer seems to agree with you.

I've played a lot of "Leningrad Bird" games (where I played like the Leningrad Dutch with colors reversed) on the site, and I also played the Antoshin variation (f4, d3, c3, then Qc2 with the idea of 5. e4), and I have done reasonably well with both.

I once played the Leningrad Bird in a 4 round G/60 tournament in Daytona Beach, and I had the rare pairing luck to draw 3 whites out of four, as I was paired up and the higher-rated players got their due colors. I went 2.5 out of 3 with the Bird, and gained 101 rating points in one day.

Somewhat flukey, and hardly a decent data set overall, but I think it's OK. It certainly beats playing against the Berlin Defense for winning possibilities. Openings are just the initial serve, and most of the time you have to volley well regardless of the initial moves.