Not really a ‘trick’, but inexperienced players seem to miss some crucial sea zone connections around Australia. It’s amazing how quickly the US can get into the DEI through that route.
If you at the Aussie naval base you can hit almost all of the DEI as well as PI and can even land in Burma (!) in one turn! It’s things like that that Allied players miss that give th Japanese a bigger advantage. Once you see those, it’s MUCH harder on Japan IMO.