In rebuys you must be prepared to make multible rebuys. The key is accumulating chips, just having 2 0r 3 times your starting chips at the break although great in a reg tourney is not good enough in a rebuy. You must take chances, call all ins with less than premium hands and push against raises with hands you might otherwise call or fold with. When i am playing a rebuy I will call all-ins with any pair any suited ace or king, any med to large suited connectors, any 2 cards 10 and higher, etc. I can't tell you how many times I've called with K-10 and was facing queen-4 or some such. If you hit trips with your small pair you can double or triple or even quadruple up.
Succsefull rebuy players always gamble to get large stacks. The problem with playing tight as you noticed is you have to catch hands and sometimes you will run cold, not to mention that sometimes your big hands get beat.
And also remember that you can almost never
bluff in the first hour of a rebuy tournament. There is almost always someone willing to call or reraise you.
bluffing is a big part of a tight players game since people respect your bets most of the time, but it's gone in a rebuy.
So the key is play loose at the begining, when you get a large stack then tighten up put still be willing to call some all-ins later, especially near the end of the hour when people start to get desperate and start pushing anything.
You also have to have a different attitude when playing. Ignore bad beats or worrying about what the other player might have. If you have middle pair after the flop and someone else goes all in, call, flush draw, call, etc. Pot
odds are meaningless.
Often in a rebuy tourney if I'm all-in, I don't even watch the cards. I just see if I won or not and then rebuy if i lost. You really can't care about your chips until after the fist hour or if you get a large stack.
Sure, sometimes playing tight will work and you can get chips, but you have to get premium hands to play that way and you can easily go card dead for an hour.
As for your ace-10, that's an easy call. In rebuys people go all ini with any ace any king sometimes any queen, any 2 suited cards etc. Ace-10 could be the best hand, If not so what, you could get lucky and win or worst case you lose and rebuy.
The more people all-in in front of you the more you want to call. If 5 people go all in in front of me, not a rare occurance, I will call with almost any 2 cards, the chance to get that many chips is just too good.
If you are only comfortable playing TAG then you probably shouldn't play rebuys.
