[McMelchior]

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4000 chips
25/50 blinds
blinds go up every 20 minutes.

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How fast is the progression? If level 4 is like 200/400 the "push with crap all the time" is probably a sound strategy, since your tournament basically is over if you haven't at least doubled within the first 30 hands.

These kind of structures favors bold moves and fast play, and "playing tight to build a tight image" is probably a losing strategy. It's not clear from your post whether the opponents push before or after the flop, but the way you descibe yourself makes me guess you're primarily a "pre-flop" player. If I'm right this might be one of the reasons you're not winning - you will not see enough deals to be able to base your success on picking up prime hands.

The fast structure imposes a very high variance and there's little you can do to counteract that - you just have to roll with the punches and capitalize on random luck. Playing tight probably puts your "bad" opponents at an advantage over you.

My suggestion is to experiment with a significantly more LAGgy style, realizing that very often you'll find yourself on the rail within the first 20 minutes of the tournament - but with the chance of building a big stack and being able to dominate once in a while.

If that's not your game you might consider focussing on playing one-table sats for the $500 buy-in (or bigger) tourneys, where the structure favors your style.

Best,

McMelchior (Johan)