In KO everyone’s more aggressive and more lose than usual therefore tight is right. You can often get ITM playing mostly top
hands. However, if more people play tight at the table then play more hands with implied
odds against them when over 50bb effective stack. Most KO are turbo, otherwise you can be looser until 30-ish.
Also you have much less fold
equity regardless how you play until deep in the run. This is why the best place to be a short stack is a KO tournament. You often get to triple up or more and then become the table leader in no time.
As strategy, I try to swing only up mostly from a short stack. I play tightly with no fear (what an unusual association) and conservative. The only times I don’t get ITM is when I don’t fold in marginal spots which still happens way too often, unfortunately.