Getting staked at 2/5 NL - what's standard for staking?

[friedace]

Hey guys,

I just came back from the greatest poker session of my life. I went to a local room as usual and was in the 1/2 NL $300 Max. My buddy there told me I should play in the 2/5 $500 Max game because it's super soft. Up until this point, 1/2 is the highest I've played, but the 1/2 game was all short stacks who were super tight, so I decided to switch to 2/5. I bought in for the chips I had at 1/2 ($464) and then played a hand. I'm a university student who about to start to dip into his line of credit, so after thinking for a bit, I thought that I should take my buddy up on his offer to stake me for 50%. It seemed like a good idea at the time to cut down the variance. And, I figured that, since it's roughly double, if I get staked for 50%, it's like I'm playing 1/2, except just against shittier players. So, my edge will be greater, but the variance will only be at 1/2 levels (since down 1BI @ $500, is only down $250 of my cash, which is equivalent to down 1BI @ 300 1/2).

I can't even tell you how bad this was. This was the worst poker game I've ever sat down in. One guy was dumping $500 racks like it was a joke, with no pair, no draw, or *sometimes* bottom pair. I raised to 15 UTG with QQ, someone reraised, 3 calls, I reraise to 150, **4 callers**. Luckily, I took that one down. At one point, another donkey came in and played hands blind for $300 with the dumper. I couldn't believe it! In any case, I had the biggest win of my life (not just in absolute terms, but in BBs) for a 3 hour session. I walked away from the table with $2436 in cash after 3 hours of play. Of course, I was hitting hands and my hands basically always stood up, but it still feels great to walk away with such a big win. At the end, I gave my buddy half of that, and headed home.

Now, for the question. As I started stacking my chips, I began to think that this 50/50 arrangement was a bad idea. I began to think that the standard arrangement is he puts up 100% of the bankroll, I play, and then we split the profit. In any case, it wouldn't have made a difference here, but it would in the future if I had a downswing.

What do you guys think? Should I get staked for 100% in this game in the future and split the profit? Or should I just grow some balls and try to take a shot under-rolled? FYI, I have about $3500 to my name, but I do have a line of credit and can probably borrow if I need to. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I figure if I forget this [censored] and have another good session, I'll have enough of a roll to sustain some beats.

P.S. I realize that this amount of money is nothing compared to what some of you play, but for me, it's a big deal, so please no flames. I'm definitely not thinking I'm a hot shot because I obviously don't expect to average anywhere close to this over the long run.