  We investigate the role of the central two-body nucleon-nucleon correlations
on typical quantities observed in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Basic
correlation measures, such as the fluctuations of the participant eccentricity,
initial size fluctuations, or the fluctuations of the number of sources
producing particles, are sensitive at the level 10-20% to the inclusion of the
two-body correlations. However, the realistic correlation function gives
virtually indistinguishable results from the {\em hard-core repulsion} with the
expulsion distance set to $\sim 0.9$ fm. In the second part of the talk we
compare the spherical and Gaussian wounding profiles and find that the latter,
which is more realistic, leads to reduced eccentricity and fluctuations. This
has significance for precision studies of the elliptic flow.
