Sniper City, 4/4, 5/5 Rule
This is the big time for snipers. Could be a valuable paint brush, or battle equipment. It's under priced by like tens of thousands of points, or even hundreds of thousands of points. Basically, you're competing with a whole army of snipers, as well as amateurs. Everyone is going to bid, some high, some low, but there are dozens of snipers, and you know it. This is Sniper City. And it's show time.
Remember this though. I lose about 90% of the big ones, where it's Sniper City. Why? Well, it's Sniper City, there's dozens of people bidding, and the chance you have a bid higher than everyone else's, without going 2,000 higher, . . . that's a tough thing to do. However, no one wins all, or even close to all of these, though there are things you can do to improve your chances.
item P, value 350,000, increment 1,000, 8 seconds left
bidderC 256,000np
bidderT 254,000np
bidderD 253,000np
bidderQ 252,000np
You see 50 bids in the last minute. You know people want this thing, bad.
item P, value 350,000, increment 1000, 5 seconds left
bidderT 259,000np
bidderA 257,000np
bidderC 256,000np
bidderT 254,000np
bidderD 253,000np
bidderQ 252,000np
item P, value 350,000, increment 1000, 4 seconds left
bidderL 261,000np
bidderT 259,000np
bidderA 257,000np
bidderC 256,000np
bidderT 254,000np
bidderD 253,000np
bidderQ 252,000np
item P, value 350,000, increment 1000, 3 seconds left
bidderS 264,000np
bidderR 263,000np
bidderL 261,000np
bidderT 259,000np
bidderA 257,000np
bidderC 256,000np
bidderT 254,000np
bidderD 253,000np
bidderQ 252,000np
Ok, here's a question for you. At what point would you have bid? If you say after seeing the bid at 3 seconds, it is probably too late. By the time you type in your bid, and it processes, you will probably get that "This auction is closed, you cannot place anymore bids!" Grr.
For me, I go with what I call the 4/4 or 5/5 method. Essentially, it's 4k over the last bid plus the minimum increment at 4 seconds, or 5k over the last bid plus the minimum increment at 5 seconds. Sometimes, especially if it seems lots of people are bidding, you might have to increase it to 7k at 5 seconds, or even more. You might want to try a double bid, like bidding 5k and 7k over, or 7k and 9k over. There is no answer that's always going to work, you just have to experience a few dozen auctions to get a feel for it.
In this example, at 4 seconds, it was at 261,000, so I would've gone 1k over for the minimum increment, plus 4k, so I would've bid 267,000. At 5 seconds, the last bid was 259,000, so I would've bid 1k plus 5k, so 6k, so I would have bid 266,000. The rule isn't perfect, and if I see a LOT of bidders, I'll increase it. But generally this is what I follow, and 10% winning these big auctions isn't that bad. At least for me. If you have a better guessing method, that's fine, but for me, having a strict number keeps me from "guessing" and "thinking too much".
Remember, the higher the minimum increment, the higher you have to snipe though. If it's 1,000, you have to go 1,000 plus the 2,000 over the increment, plus whatever you want to go over.
Again, I won't post the results because these are too unpredictable. My best advice is to try these out, and after a while you will get a feel of when to bid and how much, based on watching the last minute of the auction. It's important you watch the last minute, not just the last 10 seconds, because you will get an idea of how many people there are watching. If you only get 2 bids, there aren't a lot of people, the more bids you have, the more likely someone is going 2k over, and someone else is going 4k over.
"Those who hesitate are lost"
Just bid, if you think too much about what to bid, you won't get ANY bid in. In the back of your mind, as you are refreshing, you should have a number in mind, like whatever it is at 5 seconds, I'm going to add ____ to it at 2 seconds. By the time you stop refreshing at 5 seconds, you should know what you are going to bid. Flip windows, move your hand over to the numbers, type in your bid, and hit enter. Don't hesitate, just bid.
You should hit enter at 1.5-2 seconds because if it's any later, it won't process in time. Any earlier, you will probably won't win because your bid is too high. Since you are anticipating other 2k, 3k over the minimum bids, they won't be entered if you bid at 3 seconds, and yours will have that "2k over the minimum error". Wait for other people to have entered their bids, then bid over all of that.
The little add-ons apply too, like the Nice Number plus Increment Method, or the seng44's 001 Block Method.
I would recommend only one bid though. It may be tempting to want to bid 267,000 and 270,000 in this example, and you can give it a try. I have, and what I discovered is that to do this, you have to stop refreshing at 6 seconds, scroll down, and make your first bid at 3-4 seconds, flip to your 2nd window and make your second bid at 1.5 seconds. If you have a big enough screen, and are good with your mouse, you might want to check out the chaeries 4 Windows Method, which is based on bidding based on 6-7 seconds, but you have more chances.
You can try bidding more than once with your refreshing window and bidding window, but since there are so many other bids, and it takes time to scroll down and enter a bid, you might be too late. It takes at least 2 seconds to scroll down and type in your first bid, so you have to stop refreshing at 6-7 seconds to give you time to do both bids. Essentially, you are bidding based on old information, what the bid was at 6-7 seconds.
I would rather know what the last bid was at 4-5 seconds, flip to my second window and make one bid, based on more accurate information. All or nothing. I mean you can try doing 2 bids on these, but for me, Sniper City is all about one bid.
Pros:
In sniper city, this is the only way to go.
Cons:
Everyone else is doing the same thing.