I have recently started playing in a regular NL Tournament at a local casino. Buy in is either £10 or £20 (figure $22 or $45) with rebuys for the first 2 hours. You get 500 chips. Blinds are 25 and 50 for rebuy period, then go up every 20 minutes. There are usually about 60 entrants.

I have played in the £20 tournament twice and coped pretty well, confident that I was at least as good as the average player. The first time I got seventh which was good for £100.

However, the £10 version was an entirely different story. For the rebuy period, most players went mental- especially during the first 20 minutes. People moving all in on the first hand with 10 4 off, 52s etc, the 'tight' players were calling re raises pre flop with jq. This meant that some players will have bought in for anything up to 15 times with most having bought in at least 4 times by the rebuy period ending. Clearly, with that amount of chips in play, this means that some of the players have monster stacks by the time the period ends.

After the rebuy ended things tighten up considerably. I hadn't rebought, having trebled up during the opening period (flopping a full house on the sb and getting called all the way with AA). I got pretty lucky to get the chips that I had acquired, but my stack at its highest in the whole event was 5500, and, with that many rebought chips in play, some of the other stacks dwarfed mine, from pretty much the first half hour onwards. I made it to the final two tables, by which stage I was down to about 3K- the chip leader opposite me must have had at least 100K. The big blind went up to 1K and I made a stand and got KO'd in 12th, 5 spots out of the money.

What strategic adjustments should I as a tight (insanely tight by these standards) and aggressive tournament player make?
Any suggestions for how to acquire chips early on without participating in the crap shoot that many did of all in with any two cards pre flop, and paying the likely multiple re-buys required? I liked the way I played early on, maximising big hands when I made them, and not getting over involved in marginal situations, but does anyone think you should loosen up a little here, and maybe move all with hands like A10 or 88 when you know you will get called by such crap, and be prepared to rebuy if required? Or better to wait for premium preflop hands and post flop situations? The danger there is you end up painfully short stacked, as I did. I still think, on balance, this is the right way to play it, and avoid the temptation to loosen up, as I know I was making money later on just by being observant and clever with some steals.