Oh shit.....I won

So I'm not new to poker. I've been playing live for over 11 years. I started out in tournaments as that was the only game legal in live venues in my area. Eventually cash games became available and I've focused on that almost exclusively for about 5 years now. I consider myself to be a well-above average player in my player pool, and I beat 1/2 and 2/5 games decisively.

Anyway, the point of all this is that I started out as a fish during the poker boom days and have evolved into something pretty good since then, but only in low stakes live games. My goal is to become a live pro after my kids are grown. I did manage to pay all of my bills by playing poker for a period of about 14 months following my divorce and a cruelly-timed layoff. I wouldn't say it was a "comfortable" lifestyle, but I think I proved that it's possible for this game to be a path to a comfortable retirement for me. So that's what I'm working towards. I can't do it now because I have 3 kids and I need a job with a steady income and a dental plan.

Back in my fishy-days, I would play on Full Tilt. It never went well. I clicked alot of buttons, I tilted alot, and overall was just not a good player. I pretty much swore off online poker years ago, but have gotten back into it a little bit over the last year or so, mainly as a way to "practice" and stay sharp for my live sessions. I've found that if my live game gets a little tilty, foggy, or I just need to work through a downswing, then grinding some micros online has helped me sort of "reset".

I admit, my approach to the online game has been bad if my motive was profit. However, my motive was education and practice, so I don't think I did anything wrong. Though, as I become more succesful in live poker, there has been somewhat of a destructive pattern online. I would deposit the minimum, like $50, and I would grind 2 and 5NL. Once I felt "calibrated" i would go back to the live table, do well, and assume everything is fine. The $70 or so I have online doesn't seem to matter when I just made $2K in five hours in a casino. So I would take a shot with my online roll and play 25 or 50NL with a ridiculous risk of ruin. lol, guess what happens?

A few months later, my live game needs an adjustment, I deposit $50 again, and the cycle repeats.

Lately, I've been dabbling in tournaments again. I stopped playing them years ago because I felt there was so much more money in cash games. But the structures online are so much better than live tournaments, plus they usually don't take more than a couple hours, so I've been giving them a shot.

Last weekend I took 6th in a $22 tournament with a $25K garauntee. So now I have $700 something in my account.

WTF do I do??

I looked into cashing it out. ACR wants my ID, utility bill, etc. I'm not sure I want to send a recipe for identity theft to an overseas outfit just for $700. I might risk it for $7 million, so how do I get there?

What ring game stakes would you recommend that I play given my history ?

Also, regarding tournament play

1) Is there actually *real* money in grinding these things? How often does a "good" player ship one of these things for 4+ figures?

2) ACR tourneys usually have very very long late reg periods. Is there a "best time" to register? In the $25K garauntee that I played, there were 5 hours of late registration. Towards the end, you were only buying in for 5-10 big blinds, but you're also buying into a situation where 80+% of the field stands to get paid. Is there a "sweet spot", perhaps in terms of # of BB's, where it's optimal to start playing a tournament?

3) The tourney I played had almost 1900 buy-ins, but only about 1000 unique players. So obviously, a lot of them are re-entering after they bust during the late-reg period. Is this a good strategy? I assume that they are gambling it up early in an attempt to build a big stack, and then getting deep when they are successful. This makes sense, but it also must destroy your ROI when you're buying in for $44 or $66, and the payouts are thin (216 got paid and most prizes were under $50). I've only ever put one buy-in into any single tournament. Is that a mistake?

I have a lot more questions about transitioning from live to online. I'll try and contain them in separate future posts. For now I'm just looking for suggestions on what stakes ring games I should play, and some of the dirt on how to make money in tourneys.

Thanks