I understand the spirit of what you're saying. Typically risking your entire bankroll is a bad move because you're risking more than you can afford to lose. I'd argue that, in this instance, that wasn't the case. If anything, I was on a "free roll" of sorts. Winning that night would significantly improve my situation (allow me to pay my bills) where losing would not significantly worsen my situation - I'd still be screwed. There just wasn't much difference between having 1k and having 0 and I didn't have enough time to build slowly.