The influence of the first round games on my thinking has been considerable. Most of one's chess ideas such as centralization, king safety etc, are useless.
Timing is vital, even more so than normal chess.
This is criminal. These are great when they can be managed. It is vital to get your king off the back rank and into as big a clearing as possible. Usually one king move is enough, with the other pieces being moved away as an efficient part of developement anyway. Far too often in the games did one player have a nice material lead and neat development, only to be squashed prematurely by a 2-piece mate on the back rank.