Charles - I don't understand your post. You state "With eBay you should only bid once with the maximum amount you want to pay for an item." Do you really mean this? This is not how you bid. For example, you and I both bid on these 3 eBay auctions that ended yesterday:

4 ARUBA CHIPS-PALM -ARUBA PALM BEACH-HYATT R
Item # 3227318330 - You placed 3 bids, the second of which beat my one bid. Neither one of us won this auction.

4 DIFFERENT CASABLANCA CASINO-ARUBA CHIPS
Item # 3227321672 - You placed 4 bids, the third of which beat my one bid. Again, neither one of us won this auction.

FOUR DIFFERENT ST. MAARTEN,N.A. CHIPS
Item # 3227316226 - You placed one bid. This was the only bid on this auction until I placed my SNIPE bid 4 seconds before the auction ended. This auction I won. If I had bid earlier in the auction, wouldn't you have simply bid again, as you did in the above examples?

Just what is good bidding strategy for eBay?