My trick is to bid only once, but I wait until the last ten seconds, then as the second screen comes up to confirm, I let it get down to about 5 seconds or so before finalizing it. One shot, one kill. The other is that I bid the highest I am willing to pay in case the current bidder put in a higher bid. If I lose it, its because someone else is willing to pay more than I am. 9 out of 10 times I get what I want. Now here, I don't mind bidding as it helps the final price for a good cause. I am going to come clean, I knew I would probably not win, but that is okay with me. I just helped Mike to get a higher price, and if I would have won I would have been fine with that too. Good causes are worth spending a bit more.