Quote Originally Posted by souschefdude View Post
He could have waited to snipe his $350 bid, but it would have lost had o* placed a max bid higher.
Yes, but the important point is that sniping prevents people from changing their minds and putting in successively higher "maximum" bids. If a bidder puts in what he considers to be his maximum bid, only to discover that he is not yet the high bidder, then he can bid again, and again, and eventually work his way up to being the high bidder; or he can fail to become the high bidder by giving up and then all he has accomplished is ensuring that the winner pays a lot more than he would have if he had sniped.