Well, avoid getting involved into early fights , hands. You can open with PP everytime youre dealt one in early game, and it is worth limping in or paying a small raise from your opponents. Play tight, less opening hands. Loosen up your play when on the bubble, accumulate chips. Its better to be in top 10 ( chips ) when in the money, rather than having a larger stack on the bubble and losing it to blinds because you wait for people to get knocked out so youre sure you got the minimum cash. Its just not worth it. Aim for the first and first place only, go as far as you can. Be careful with hands like TT, JJ, you might think they are good starting hands but they are trouble most of the time. If limping is possible - you should do that, but on the flop - no set, no bet
. When you get raised with a big amount of chips preflop, say he has 1500 and he is raising you with 300. Now you got enough chips on your stack, but you need to see something, he has a really strong hand and is trying to trap someone into going all-in pre-flop. And the another - if you actually decide to pay him, you need to doublecheck your hand whether its worth going to the end with it, because it will certainly come to push or fold , either on the turn or the flop.
So just play tight, aggressive on the bubble, stealing blinds. Thats the basics, and not only to this tournament but to most of the sng's. Playing loose on those tournaments is rarely profitable, neither is being agressive with marginal hands.
And for that AJ hand, if its not suited, its not as good starting hard as you think to a tight player.