Steady on. You enter your maximum you're prepared to pay. If you win the auction, you got it for that amount or less, so you're happy. If somebody else wants to pay more, they will pay more and get the item instead, and it makes little difference whether this happens soon after bidding or in the last three seconds. (In fact, I would prefer to find out sooner, so I can forget about that item and look for something else instead.) So just put down what you're prepared to pay, and let Ebay automatically bid for you (including in the last three seconds). That's how I won one of the Topre boards listed in this thread, and at a good price (actually I was surprised that my lowball bid didn't get beaten). Just like casinos, people are full of schemes to 'beat the system' on Ebay, but they are largely futile, and most seem to depend on assuming that everyone else is an idiot except you.