Well, I thought I explained why proxy bidding didn't work for me regarding Palmer. It happens. I believe you do understand even if you say you don't.
I didn't even win Palmer. My bid on Peterson was upped in the last hour and a half. No big deal. There's lots of owners, lots of schedules, and lots of action on the board we can't possibly understand.
Here's a current example. Brady and Brees are target QBs for me. They are both on the board right now. I nominated Brees because I had a hefty bid in on SJax that might win him for me. With SJax I doubt I can afford Brady. I may not even be able to afford Brees. But they are my guys at QB this year in auctions with rules like these. With a top tier elite RB, like Jackson, I'm hoping to grab Brees. If someone gets Jackson from me and I've deferred to the others on all the top RBs, then I'm probably going to be real aggressive for Brady. They are all on the board right now. I cannot possibly submit my highest bid on each. Not with any common sense anyway.
Someone has been slowly seeking my limit on Jackson all day. SJax started at 45 this morning and had been there for some time. But he went up a buck at a time slowly all day long and is now sitting at 50. If someone finds my proxy limit, and it is a limit in this case, then I am going after Brady as soon as that happens. Brady will have been on the clock for over a half a day before I know if I can bid on him. Had Brady been nominated right after my Jackson bid, then I may up his price with minutes to go if whoever is bidding up SJax finds the magic number when I'm not around. That's just the way it is in slow auctions. I find it humorous not frustrating. I can't even submit my highest bid on Brees because I may lose SJax and go for Brady instead. Capice?
Live auctions are so much fun because much of the same stuff goes on in your head in seconds instead of hours. I may see Palmer going once, going twice............... BID!! Dern it, why didn't someone else see the value? I didn't want him, but you ain't stealing him. In a slow draft that going once may be five hours, going twice may be five more, and the ...... is another five. In our case it was just like that.
Fwiw, Peterson went for $1 over my early proxy. Palmer went for $1 more than the bid that got you riled. Westbrook and Boldin are both going for $1 over my early proxies. I generally set the bar high and hope for the best sticking by it if someone tops it. Probably 90% of the time it's like that. However, in the case of AD in a serious league, I would have bid again. Here, for mock purposes, I decided to let it go.
Why not put the top price in up front and hope for the best? There's psychology and gamesmanship involved here, Renesauz. The proxy arrangement does not limit us from using some proven techniques to get someone lower if we can. Auction psychological analysis suggests that sometimes the intense curiosity to find the proxy limit drives someone to keep bidding until they finally see their name in bright lights. I could have bid Peterson at $62 max, a dollar higher than Tomlinson, and someone out of sheer impulse buying curiosity may have fished until $63 did it.
On the other hand, I could have submitted $55. Then waited for that someone to make it to $56, quickly moved to $57, watched him bump it to $59 in a few hours, the extra dollar meaing he's maxing out now, waited, waited, waited, and went $60. That person's impulse compulsion has been fed. The curious cat is killed. That person is in a bidding war now. That person thinks LT went for $61, that person is no longer driven by impulse and curiousity. That person backs down. I win Peterson at $60 instead of losing him at $62. This type of gamesmanship separates the wheat from the chaff sometimes.
This same kind of thinking applies in live auctions. It just happens very fast. Very fun and superior to these slow auctions. Good poker players are good at auctions. There is gamesmanship, bluffing, going all in, etc., involved in bidding for your final hand. Just inserting your highest bid as a proxy is not always the smartest play. You feel it at the end when a buck or two make a big difference in some player you really wanted compared to the $1 waiver wire fodder you settled for. Every single dollar is big in these things during the end game. If you can scrounge a few during the first half and maybe another in the 3rd quarter, it might be the difference in owning Ronald Curry or Drew Carter.
