Another general question, for live games in particular but also online I always find my chip stack quickly sinking below the average stack especially when the blinds and antes start to increase. I know the simple answer people say is 'play more pots' and 'be more aggressive and open more' but when I keep getting hands like K7 UTG and T4 CO then it becomes impossible to win chips and the blinds start to eat my stack. When I then force myself to play pots with weak hands I usually lose the pot due to the weak hand. Any advice?

You probably won't get that many responses to such a vague question; try to post specific steal spots gone wrong or something like that. That said...

Don't panic & start playing K7 UTG just because you're below average. Pay attention to your no. of BBs / M, but don't sweat the average too much - its largely irrelevant. And don't just try to steal randomly because you need chips - study the table & see who's not defending their blinds / folding to 3bets.

Yeah, there's no magic bullet for this. Do things because they're +EV and only because they're +EV. Sometimes you will be card dead at a loose table, and your stack will shrink. That's part of the game. As The Mentaculus said, you'll probably get more/better responses if you post more specific questions.

Try and find spots to 3bet pre against players that are opening lots but are folding lots to 3bets pre, this will help you accumlate chips. (helps to have a HUD)

Be mindful though to at least do it with hands that hold some equity if your called, suited connectors are great for this.

The way to accumulate chips in tournaments is to use both your value range and your bluffing range together optimally. what happens is when you use both ranges optimally it creates synergy in chip accumulation. If you use solely your value range you will never be able to accumulate enough chips to have a shot a the final table as you simply do not get dealt enough premium hands, and if you use your bluffing range too much it is too risky and you will bleed and get stacked too often.

Also in order to accumulate chips you cannot afford to squander any opportunities to pick up chips, this means not missing spots and not burning value no matter how thin it may be. It also means making the hero laydowns. If you are guna steal try doing it from the HJ instead of the CO most people see the CO raise coming but alot of the time with the right stacksize and player dynamics behind you, you can open ATC in the HJ and it will be +Cev.

The best technique or methodology for accumulating chips in tournaments is by playing 'small ball' this means playing many pots for low variance compared to few pots for high variance. This means hedging your bets. (spreading your bets over many investments instead of getting committed to any one of them, basically not putting all your eggs in one basket).

Alot of your bluffing range comes bluff cbetting and bluff 3betting and 2betting the timing and spot for the above is very important, alot of the time it is only one shot at the pot then shutting it down if they end up playing back. Its not so much the big hero bluffs you see on TV. Sometimes you have a back up your bluff cbet with a second barrel if you have a strong read they are peel/folding.

give the man a beer