I'm no expert, though I'm coming off a $1 SNG win that took a long time but in which I felt like I knew what a lot of the players were going to do, and could get reads on them. Which was pretty new to me.
That said, the only time I could really deploy any "tricks" were with the kind of players who would keep calling small bets down to the river (but whom you'd scare out if you bet the amount all at once).
In other words, if you're playing $1 SNGs, you might get to get cute with bad players. There was a super loose-aggressive player who was throwing chips around, and bluffed me off a couple
hands, including a made heart flush (he was to my right, and threw out a bet bigger than any he'd made before, so I laid down my pocket 9-4 because there was only one overcard on the board.) He flashed 6c 2s and (I assume) gloated. I just stayed patient, didn't try to "show him" or anything and banked away what I learned because it was worthwhile.
Iwound up busting him 20 minutes later when my pocket 9s made a set to beat his AK.
I busted the next guy (a tight player who didn't bring it in without the goods, but who wasn't above buying the blinds with a shove) on the next hand thanks to the advantage afforded me by the cocky bluffer's chips, and
viola! I'm one latte richer.
So this is a long and somewhat self-aggrandizing way of saying: Yeah, patience and solid poker.