Archie,

your response suggests that you do not understand the proxy bidding system.

If I see a chip starting at $9.99 and I am willing to $50 for it. When I put in my bid for $50 the price does not go to $50 it stays at $9.99 and if Archie comes along and puts a $19.00 bid I will be the high bidder at $19.50 not $50. Essentially the computer acts as my agent calling out the bids in the smallest allowable increment until I am either the high bidder or until the agent reaches his full authority - my high bid.

Of course your suggestion that there is no time deadline on a real auction is off base. There are many types of auctions and one extremely frequent auction is a sealied bid auction which in fact has a time deadline.

And even in the style of auction you are talking about there is a time deadline, a couple of times during the club auction it appeared that just after Jim declared an item sold he acknowledged a late bid by telling them to get there bid in earlier (I guess their bid was after the time to bid was over).

When you understand the proxy bidding system you the understand that it makes no difference when you put in your bid (except in the case of tie bids) as long as everybody understands and uses the proxy bidding system.