GUIDE / DURING THE AUCTION
How much you can really still spend
The sum that decides the end of every auction, and that heads always get wrong at the exact moment it matters.
The rule in one line
Every empty slot costs at least one credit, because no player can be bought for less. So the most you can bid now is not what is in your wallet: it is what you have, minus one credit for each slot left after buying this player.
With 200 credits and twelve empty slots, buying one leaves eleven to cover: you can reach 189. Not 200, and not 188 either — that player fills one of the twelve slots, so the reserve drops to eleven.
It is one line of arithmetic and everyone gets it wrong at least once per auction, not through incompetence but because it requires looking at the part of the sheet that has not happened yet.
Why the maximum is not the right price
The number you get is a limit, not advice. Spending the maximum halfway through means reaching the end with one credit per slot: no choice, just whoever is left.
The useful number is the other one, what happens afterwards. Buy at ninety and have ten credits per slot for eleven slots and you are fine. Have two and you have just decided that the rest of your squad will be backups.
The practical rule: above ten credits per slot you are in good shape, below five you have a problem, below three the problem cannot be fixed.
The cautious version
Anyone who wants a choice in the last half hour counts two credits per slot instead of one. On the maximum, that means subtracting one more for every empty slot.
It feels excessive until you have to buy three defenders with three credits between them. With two each you choose between two names; with one you take the only one left.
If your league does not check
In hand-run auctions nobody verifies this. It is discovered once it has already happened, and at that point every option is ugly — an incomplete squad, gifted credits, or cancelling a purchase already made.
The real answer is preventive and belongs in the rules before you start: no bid may leave a team unable to cover its remaining slots at one credit each.