Although most people say loosen up more during the rebuy period, i find that playing a tight strategy works best and saves you the most money. There will always be those players taht are willing to risk 3-4 rebuys in order to get a huge stack early. What i do is wait for a huge hand, try to get it all in preflop against one of those reckless players, and if i get sucked out on, jsut take the rebuy. This way you minimze your investment plus have almost just as good of chance at making a big stack early (assuming you don't go card dead).

The second and third hour of rebuy tournis seem to be a lot different then regular MTT's. Because there are so many more chips then there should be per person, people have really huge stacks compared to the blinds in the second and third hour. My advice would be to keep pursuing an ultra tight strategy, grind out your stack and try to keep building. No need to take any gambles assuming you have a decent stack.

The fourth hour is where i usually get in trouble. I try to continue playing tight but open up my game a little more because the blinds get pretty big and it becomes important to steal some pots. I usually end up making a move at the wrong pot, and getting out in the 20th-100th range. So can't really help you with this stage of the tournament.

the only reason to loosen up is as a reaction to your opponents weaker standards. -ev play is always -ev play.

In my opinion, sometimes even if you know your ahead, its ok to fold in a tournament if its a really marginal situation because you know you can find a better spot or play more postflop poker.

I this situation, I tend to over bet 10-10 and JJ a bit knowing more players will be willing to call with low pocket and Ax...

KJ

I'm going to go against the grain of this post. Use the search feature to look up some posts by frankx. Just search "rebuy" and you can find some good threads. I belive if you play it like a regular tournament, you will probably cash enough times, but you will never be able to finish very high without a great bit of luck. Taking marginal, slight favorite and slight dog'd situations early on will let you avoid these later when its worth a lot more chips and you can't rebuy.

I feel comfortable with anywhere from 6k to 13k after the first break. 13k+ would be ideal, but you can easily do good with less.