Dear students,
One of you asked several good questions about Game Day 3.  Here is my response:

1. Do we have minimum increment/decrement bid or the starting bid at each
auction?

Yes, after I have collected the information on which teams will participate in
a round, before the auction starts, I will announce the starting bid and the
increment/decrement of bids.  For example, for English, I would say, "Starting
bid will be at $100", and would also say, "I will increment by $15" ... and
later on during the round, if nobody is willing to go for "$115", I will then
say, "What about $110"?  and might go back up again or reduce it further
depending on the bids received.

2.  Does the increent/decrement of bids announced by the auctioneer or decided
by the bidder (for example if the current bid is $200 in English auction can a
team bid $310 in one shot)?

Yes to your example.  Yes, if an agent wants to bid higher than the
auctioneer's announced increment.  Definitely yes.

3.  How Duch auction has been implemented ( what is the starting 
price?, if two teams want the item at the same price, will it be a
competition between them to act faster or there will be a time interval for
all to accept and then there will be a tie breaker mechanism?

A starting price will be announced on the Website that we will use, and whoever
acts faster will win the bid.  So, yes, it will depend on how fast you submit
your bid.

4.  What is the tie breaker mechanism for sealed auctions, and for the Dutch
(if applicable)?

The Dutch is not applicable because I believe that with the resolution of using
the server time of receipt, it is not possible for two agents' bids to come in
exactly at the same millisecond.

For the sealed auctions, the agents with the same top bids will be asked again
to submit another bid under the same protocol, until there is a winner, or
until we run out of time allotted for that round.  I will inform the teams in
the tie-breaking situation whether the next tie-breaking round is the last
round.  If it ends up a tie, and time has run out, then there will be no
winner, and the item will not be sold.

Thank you for your attention,

LeenKiat