2/23    Someone please explain this eBay bidding pattern to me.  It looks to
        me this guy's just bidding against himself, raising the second-highest
        bid and the amount he has to pay.  Is there's any game-theory
        explanation for this behavior?
        lizard81081 ( 7 )       US $699.99      Feb-20-05 13:14:34 PST
        lizard81081 ( 7 )       US $699.00      Feb-20-05 13:14:24 PST
        lizard81081 ( 7 )       US $698.00      Feb-20-05 13:14:14 PST
        lizard81081 ( 7 )       US $690.00      Feb-20-05 13:13:57 PST
        lizard81081 ( 7 )       US $680.00      Feb-20-05 13:13:43 PST
        lizard81081 ( 7 )       US $675.00      Feb-20-05 13:13:04 PST
        lizard81081 ( 7 )       US $650.00      Feb-20-05 13:11:47 PST
        lizard81081 ( 7 )       US $625.00      Feb-20-05 13:11:29 PST
        l.mohamed ( 3 )         US $600.00      Feb-20-05 13:06:09 PST
        l.mohamed ( 3 )         US $550.00      Feb-20-05 13:05:28 PST
        joe8730 ( 3 )           US $522.00      Feb-20-05 09:43:28 PST
        \_ What was the winning bid? It should have been $625. I think you
           can raise your highest bid even if you're the highest bidder.
           So the guy winning at 2/20 13:11:29 with a bid of $625, and
           thought to himself the bidding might go higher than his current
           high bid, so he kept upping it. Why he did it incremently so much
           is dumb.
           \_ The winning bid was $699.99.  See why I'm confused?
              I just had an idea.  If there was a very high reserve price,
              the winner may have been probing for it so that the he'd win the
              item, even if nobody else was willing to pay reserve.
        \_ What was the eBay item #?
        \_ It's pretty simple.  On ebay, if an item has two matching bids,
           then the item goes to the earlier bidder.  You can also state
           the highest bid you're willing to make when you initially bid, and
           let it bid for you automatically if someone else bids higher than
           your current bid.  It looks like what happened here is that
           lizard81081 placed a bid when l.mohamed was the current high bidder,
           and told ebay he was willing to go as high as <some number at least
           $699.99>.  Ebay took that as an initial bid of $600.  Someone else
           attempted to bid $625, but lizard81081 was willing to go that high,
           and had the earlier bid, so ebay upped his bid and kept him as the
           high bidder.  This happened several times, but the other bidder
           never went past the highest bid lizard81081 is willing to make.
           The highest bid won't go to another bidder until that bidder makes
           a bid higher than lizard81081's highest possible bid.
           \_ Uh, if that were the case, then why aren't the opposing bids
              listed?  The theory about probing for reserve price makes more
              sense.
              \_ Because they aren't actual bids.  The earlier bidder that was
                 willing to go higher already pwned the prospective bidder.
                 \_ I don't think that's how it works.  I think *all* bids
                    are recorded.
                    \_ nope. pp is right.
                       \_ not disagreeing with you, but I always wondered
                          why eBay doesn't list the competing bids that
                          triggered an automatic re-bid
           \_ So someone is probing for Lizard's highest bid, but finally
              gave up?
              \_ It's more accurate to say they wanted to outbid Lizard with
                 the smallest margin necessary, or, just gave up when the
                 amount was too high.  If the auction ended 10 seconds later,
                 it's possible the second bidder just ran out of time.
                 \_ Couldn't he have bid $1000 and it would automatically
                    win w/ the smallest margin necessary? Or... just bid the
                    maximum he's willing to pay, which will result in him
                    either not getting the item or getting it w/ the smallest
                    margin necessary.
                    \_ Your psychological maximum changes over time.
                       It may be that after you win it, you regret it.
                       People are not perfectly predictable.