1. Current wisdom suggests that a tight strategy is the best strategy until only four or five players remain.
2. Most players fail to properly assess the relative size of their stack. They're really not big stacks.
There isn't anything wrong with the "play tight early" strategy. The blinds are just too small to warrant much risk, but as the tournament progresses, the increasing blinds, quickly diminishes the relative size of your stack, and the opportunities for low risk/high return plays decrease. When the big stack sits back paying the blinds and allowing his opponents to eliminate each other, he can quickly become a short stack, as his stack shrinks and others double up. Look at this example from Full Tilt Poker :
• 9 seat S&G, starting stack = 1500. Starting blinds 10/20. Your M = 50
• On the first hand you push with A-A get two callers and win. You have tripled up to 4500. That stack looks pretty good compared to the 1500 stacks of your opponents, but your stack of 4500 leaves 9000 chips on the table.
• If you sit back and allow your opponents to fight it out. You can expect the blinds to be at 75/150 when the field is reduced to four or five. Your stack has been reduced by about 850 to 3650 and there is 9850 on the table divided among four opponents. Their average stack is now 2500 but more probably two are short stacked with less than 2000, and the other two have about 4000 apiece.
• You are now in third position and can be eliminated by two players. Even the short stacks can deal you a disastrous blow, if you double one of them up.
• When the blinds go up to 100/200 you have an M of about 12 but you only get five hands for each round, and once they go to 200/400, your M is only 5 and you should be considering some type of move. You have maneuvered yourself into a corner with your super tight strategy and must risk elimination, or simply try to survive into the 3rd place.
A year, or even six months, ago a good tight strategy could almost guarantee a spot in the money. A normal S&G lasted about 50 minutes and seldom reached the 200/400 level. Today with many more players playing ultra tight, Sit & Gos usually last longer than one hour and often still have four or five players when the blind levels reach 200/400. Often the proper strategy is to play the opposite of the table's most common strategy. Play tight on a loose table and play loose on a tight table. You might not want to take it to the extreme, but today this contrarian strategy might be best in single table Sit & Gos also.
Sooner or later you have to play. You can't tread water and wait for the tide to carry you back to shore. Eventually you have to start swimming toward the pier. Otherwise you will exhaust your energy (stack), and sink.
GL