How You Can Get Screwed Shill Bidding

Shill bidding is when players attempt to drive up the price of players that they have no intention of buying. Sure this can be a fun game to play but can be extremely risky, especially when people smell your bluff.  If you are familiar with your competitors it may be possible to shill bid without much risk, but if its a new crowd be smart! The general rule of thumb is to only shill bid if a player is going to be sold for well under value. Shill bid the player up to what value dictates, but don’t get overly greedy in the shill bidding game or YOU will be the one to lose.

Learn which big players you want and don’t want and throw those other ones out early! This is the most basic of auctions strategies but can be a game changer if you stick with it.

Save Cash for a Rough Patch

Auction fantasy football is a lot like chess. As such every player knows the significance of each player they choose. As such your salary cap and your spending will literally make or break your season. Some say the game is won PRIOR to it even beginning.

Regardless of how much experience your competitors have in auction fantasy football they will still act like a typical auction with human interaction. Especially considering the money they are spending isn’t ‘real’. Therefore, people will spend more money than they should in the first half of the auction, when they have that nice lump sum of a salary cap sitting in their pocket. If you can manage to hold out wait until about two-thirds through the auction start to begin spending aggressively, you’ll take control of the board. Remember that fantasy football is no different then real life, if you spend all your money and get stuck you’ll be like the rest of those guys that were selling mortgage leads back in the day.

This is about the time people can only pay the bare minimum for the rest of their rosters and you have all that money saved up! Be a smart bidder and let those sharks take each other out as they overvalue the players.

With that being said though, make sure that you do purchase some quality starters along the way. The last thing that you want to do is end up finishing the auction with no power players on your roster and a bunch of crap players but alot of money in your camp. You can’t take that money with you so be sure to spend it all!

Setting Up Your Auction Strategy

Everyone has a different amount of time that they can spend on preparing for their fantasy auctions. Some may have fifteen minutes while others spend up to twenty or so hours meticulously preparing for their upcoming fantasy auction. Regardless of your time here is a time tested strategy to make sure your up to date and prepared for the upcoming auction. Keep in mind you don’t want to be pulling your hair out from the stress of not being prepared for the upcoming season, otherwise you may need a hair loss remedy

Create a cheat sheet (will include link later), with this cheat sheet you can generate a mock auction by using the cheat sheet’s values. Theoretically the cheat sheet should be accurate and all the teams should be even. Then you should adjust your player values accordingly - weaker teams generally have overpriced players and stronger teams have under-priced players. After adjusting prices several times and running mock auctions you should have a fairly good idea of decent values for players and pricing.

Now you’ve got a rocking cheat sheet! The most important strategy of fantasy auctions is bargain hunting. Be ready to bid on players that are going for a big discount at the bid countdown. The more of these bargains you pick up the faster you will be successful with your fantasy league.

Auction Strategy for Beginners

I just want to go over some of the basic strategies for a successful fantasy football auction setup. Even if you are a beginner going up seasoned veterans if you follow some of these simple rules you can be guaranteed a solid fantasy team.

There’s a few of us out there (you know who you are) that spend in the upwards of 30 or so hours a week doing research prior to our season auction. Those players that happen to just pick up a preseason magazine a few hours before the auction should stick to this strategy.

Apply the following salary cap percentages on your picks:

• One QB - 10-15%
• Two RB - 50-60%
• Three WR - 25-35%
• Keep the minimum’s for the remaining players

This is an easy but a sure fire way to have a solid lineup for the upcoming season and players to choose from. After each player is sold, write down how much he sold for on your cheat sheet. This gives you a great idea of how your league perceives values for positions which allows you to strategically bid accordingly. By keeping track of players purchased and values associated you can make winning purchases time and time again without overpaying.

I see people have solid seasons time and time again by following that simple strategy. This will help you keep your head on your shoulders and not get caught up in a bidding war and overpaying for players.