GUIDE / MISTAKES
The mistakes that ruin a live auction
These are not strategy mistakes: they are things that happen at the table and, if you have not planned for them, cost an hour.
The double count
Someone raises while the auctioneer is already saying “going twice”, the auctioneer does not hear it in time and closes. An argument follows about who spoke first, and that argument has no answer: neither is lying, they simply heard different things.
The only prevention that works is a single count, visible to everyone, restarting from the top on every valid raise. If the count lives in the auctioneer’s head, sooner or later two people will have two different counts.
Numbers that sound alike
“Thirty-six” and “sixty-six”, “two hundred and two” and “two hundred and twelve”. At a table with overlapping voices these are confused constantly, and whoever said the number is certain they said it clearly.
The remedy is always repeating the amount received out loud before restarting the count. It costs two seconds and ends the argument before it starts, because anyone who said a different number hears it immediately rather than after the sale.
The forgotten role
You reach the end and one squad has six forwards and two defenders. It happened because nobody tracked the slots while buying, and halfway through nobody wants to do that by hand.
If you run the auction with pen and paper, stop every ten purchases and go through the squads out loud. It is slow, but an uncovered role discovered at the end is far slower to fix.
The budget that does not add up
Two people track credits, the numbers diverge, and the gap is noticed twenty purchases later. By then reconstructing is impossible and everyone settles on a rough figure.
One ledger kept by one person beats two ledgers checked against each other. If you insist on double-checking, compare totals after each completed role, not at the end.
The sale nobody confirmed
The auctioneer closes, the next player starts immediately, and three names later someone asks: “what did that one go for?”. If nobody said player, price and team out loud before moving on, the answer is a reconstruction from memory.
Before opening the next lot, always say the three things together: who, how much, to whom. It is the only habit on this list that costs nothing and prevents half the arguments by itself.
The evening with no break
Three hours of unbroken attention do not exist. After two hours people misread numbers, forget roles and raise out of tiredness: the worst mistakes of an auction cluster in the final hour.
A ten-minute break halfway through, announced in advance and respected, improves the quality of the last squads more than any technical measure.