I don't understand the psychology of “chasing the reserve.“ If you need to know what the reserve is, that means you haven't made up your mind what you would pay for it; not very savvy buying strategy. For me, hidden reserves are a turn-off, because I don't like someone else thinking I'm going to be such a sucker that I'll try to guess what their secret price is. If you have a reserve price, be upfront about it and just make that the opening bid.

I almost never bid anything before ”snipe-time.” There's no point, from a buyer's point of view, in contributing to a bidding frenzy by slowly incrementing bids. I have enough discipline to be sure about the max. bid I would pay, in any case. I bid that at the end, and I don't feel bad if I lose -- but I don't feel remorse about having won, either.

Bidding this way also takes shill bidding right out of the equation. If the seller shills, he's (women are more ethical than that) doing so having no idea what I would bid -- chasing my reserve, as it were, and betting they know how much someone will commit to. I really don't care what games people play before the final moments. And I rarely bid on something that's been relisted, unless it's a very good deal. Done this way, the process avoids being “taken” due to poor judgment, to a great extent.