Pete,
One thing you are missing here is that the sniper also had a proxy bid working. He placed the proxy bid with 15 seconds remaining (Oct-12-03 18:59:45 PDT) and the system took over from there. Your bid at the point would have been $5.49. The bids would have alternated at .50 increments by proxy at x.99 and x.49 until you hit $14.49 and the sniper was at $14.99. You then had .01 left the snipper .02. The proxy system then takes any left over partial increments as a bid. Therefore the $15.01 to your $15.00. Note: You both had partial increment bids. If the partial increment bids were not allowed you still would have lost at $14.99.
Paul