None at all. In blitz the opening does not matter. Carlsen plays really weird stuff like 1 a4 in blitz and wins with it. It is often better to make the opponent think and burn time on his clock than playing the objectively best move.
To prepare play some practice games of the same time control against a strong engine.
Just play your normal openings. When you are out of the opening, don't spend a lot of time memorising the next move. Speed is more important than opening moves.
Just try to play fast and solid, openings aren't that important in blitz, however, if you want to learn some theory, going for obscure and tricky lines is best, you can check out a bunch of repertoires designed just for blitz and rapid, a book from Sveshnikov is quite decent.
I played in my first OTB blitz tournament. With white i was successful with a standard Italian but genrally just played fast solid moves. With black the same applies but i used the french because not all players are familiar with it.
None at all. In blitz the opening does not matter. Carlsen plays really weird stuff like 1 a4 in blitz and wins with it. It is often better to make the opponent think and burn time on his clock than playing the objectively best move.
To prepare play some practice games of the same time control against a strong engine.
The opening does matter a lot in blitz chess.
Carlsen does that as a massive handicap to himself, because he has lack of competition for the vast majority of blitz games he plays.
The next point you make seems to contradict your earlier point - you say better to make the opponent think and burn time on his clock than play the objectively correct moves - that's what many openings do. There are people who've gotten 2400 on this site with the blackmar-diemer.
@11
Carlsen does not do that to handicap himself, he does that to avoid long theoretical lines that may be drawish. He also does not want to reveal his preparation in a mere blitz game. It is like: let us play chess, not theory.
In blitz you can reach 2400 and beyond with Blackmar-Diemer, with 1 a4, with 1 f3. The opening does not matter. Moving fast and a good eye for tactics is all you need.
In the first OTB tournament, the only important thing is to not forget to hit the clock yourself. It doesn't sound like much, but never forgetting it is hard.
Also, don't play illegal moves, and notice if and when the opponent does.
Putting additional pressure on yourself by playing some new stuff would be madness.
tygxc I don't know what on earth you are talking about or why you ever got that impression, it's not true at all.
It has been explained to you that Carlsen plays 1. a4 or the like as a handicap online or sometimes a bit of a joke, he does not do it to "hide preparation" or anything like that.
None of what you're saying true at all. And you come in so sure of it, just casually stating it like it's a known thing. It's really obnoxious, don't you feel guilty telling people something that is false.
GMs playing serious blitz ALWAYS use theoretical openings, EVERY TIME they are playing seriously. Even if they play something offbeat they have worked on that opening, that's how it works. You would know this if you had the slightest clue of what you're talking about before stating things to others and even arguing with someone who corrects you.
Look at the world blitz chess championship games 2023, everyone is playing Ruy Lopez, Queen's Gambit, etc. highly theoretical versions of them, noone's saying they'll start with a4 because "openings don't matter in blitz" and to hide their preparation.
https://www.chess.com/events/2023-fide-world-blitz-chess-championship/games
Openings matter as long as the evaluation bar in the game remains somewhat steady. At the lower levels the evaluation bar fluctuates wildly, so it can be said that openings don't really matter to the result. There's no point in knowing a long opening if you're only going to throw away the position the next few moves. That's what you're thinking of. High level blitz is NOT like this and openings matter hugely.
The ultimate proof is that GMs score about twice as much in blitz with white as they do for black, about the same for long games. If openings didn't matter then whatever colour you had would not affect the result. Again at the lower levels they don't matter, at GM level they matter tremendously even in 2 1 bullet. Every single streamer talks about the opening in a blitz game they're playing and what are good moves or bad moves for the opening.
Even at my level openings are important. I'm not going to say a bookless London is going to substantially harm chances at my level, but it's still a London opening and not f3. I've been thinking of changing my response to the dutch because it works too well. The Hopton attack, and for some reason even some players 2100+s don't know it and get slaughtered and frankly I'm sick of it. It's too easy and it's not satisfying to me to beat good players like this. It's not meant to be a trick opening at all, sometimes there's a king hunt, but other times it's just a huge bind on the position that lasts the whole game. Due to my level I could still mess it up but hard to mess up some of those positions. I think it's very important also that you have increment in blitz, otherwise people can just play cheap and for time.
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