Oathed
Member
Analysis of actual winning bids on eBay (Yang and Kahng, 2006[4]) suggests that winning bidders are more likely to have placed a single bid late in the auction, rather than placing multiple incremental bids as the auction progresses.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction_sniping
I'm an old dude who's never played a game of 40K or Titanicus or Blood Bowl, but had all of them back in 1988 or so. So I figured I can get some stuff now that I have a job and some cash and the personal circumstances. So that means finding stuff, which means internet auctions. Which means people outbidding me in the last few minutes using automated tools. For my purposes:
1. Bidding late means paying less for what you want, on average, over time, with some greater risk of not getting what you want when you want it. It's a long game for the person with perspective.
2. If you don't use it, it will be used against you. It's legal, eBay condones it. They tried to stop it in Germany and were shot down by the German High Court (or w/e they call it).
3. Hang on, there's upsides as well. Yes I make a bit of cash now, but I also know that I tend to spend too much on stuff I don't end up using. I don't even have a group of people to play with, but buy Epic 40K, Aeronautica Imperialis, Necromunda, Mordheim, BFG, Dark Future (lol). If people snipe my bidding, it's just a natural brake on my spending - or I can be at the computer at a set time to make sure my bid is raised to a point where I don't care if I win or lose anymore - equilibrium in the market (B.S.FS in Economics '1996).
LESSON LEARNED: I'm fine with getting my bids sniped generally, it's a brake on spending. But sometimes not. If there's an auction I really care about, I will either educate myself and learn to use tools, or I will just have to suck it up and make an appointment for myself to remind me to sit there and play the anti-sniper game. I just lost a huge good auction on Eldar BFG. I'll take care with the Necromunda lot I'm looking at.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auction_sniping
I'm an old dude who's never played a game of 40K or Titanicus or Blood Bowl, but had all of them back in 1988 or so. So I figured I can get some stuff now that I have a job and some cash and the personal circumstances. So that means finding stuff, which means internet auctions. Which means people outbidding me in the last few minutes using automated tools. For my purposes:
1. Bidding late means paying less for what you want, on average, over time, with some greater risk of not getting what you want when you want it. It's a long game for the person with perspective.
2. If you don't use it, it will be used against you. It's legal, eBay condones it. They tried to stop it in Germany and were shot down by the German High Court (or w/e they call it).
3. Hang on, there's upsides as well. Yes I make a bit of cash now, but I also know that I tend to spend too much on stuff I don't end up using. I don't even have a group of people to play with, but buy Epic 40K, Aeronautica Imperialis, Necromunda, Mordheim, BFG, Dark Future (lol). If people snipe my bidding, it's just a natural brake on my spending - or I can be at the computer at a set time to make sure my bid is raised to a point where I don't care if I win or lose anymore - equilibrium in the market (B.S.FS in Economics '1996).
LESSON LEARNED: I'm fine with getting my bids sniped generally, it's a brake on spending. But sometimes not. If there's an auction I really care about, I will either educate myself and learn to use tools, or I will just have to suck it up and make an appointment for myself to remind me to sit there and play the anti-sniper game. I just lost a huge good auction on Eldar BFG. I'll take care with the Necromunda lot I'm looking at.
Apologies to anybody who I pipped at the post but I did bid considerably more than I paid as recent sales should have had them around the #40.00 mark 
