Stick with it... it's how you got here

[Eric P]

whenever i play a live tournament i am very often amoung the chip leaders early. These are usually 30-40 player tournaments where you start with 2-3k and blinds are pretty reasonable, levels are usually between 15-30 minutes. Anyways i am very aggressive and play hard on a lot of flops, everyone knows this and it seems the whole table is against me, which usually leads to me getting abougt 2.5 times the starting chips within the first 2-4 levels cause someone tries to bluff me when i've bumped into the nuts.

My question has to do with after i have secured a nice chip position, should i keep pushing people around and playing very aggressive and playing a lot of hands like i do to get all those chips? or should i at this point, tighten up because i can afford to wait a long time for a good hand. my strategy has been usually to play less hands, but still probably playing more than everybody else, so the same way i got there but toned down a little. In general once you get in a good chip position with say half the field remaining, and it only paying the top 10% (one spot per starting table) should i get tight and try and coast into the money, or should i just keep going for the throat.