I think I'm coming to grasp just how important BR management is. At first, I just sort of took it at face value - "okay, you need to have budget of that much, but if you can afford $500 there's no reason to put that much in; you can just put in $50 or $100 and if you need to reload, go ahead" - that's what I thought.

Now, I'm not so sure anymore. I think that if you can afford $500, and you're playing at a limit where you should have $500 in, you should. I haven't really quantified in words why I've made this transition in thinking, but something that Ripp posted awhile ago seems to be the theme - managing risk.

If you're bringing all or most of your BR (not your budget) into a game, I think it probably increases your risk of losing because you're under increased stress to win so that you don't have to reload. But if you're only coming in with 1/12 or 1/25 of your BR, it enables you focus on the game and decide the smart risks to take to win money rather than being forced to take risks to try to win money.

Maybe I'm way off-base in my assessment, but I think this makes sense to me.