There are “how to” guides everywhere. How to solve the Rubik’s Cube. How to be a boss at work. How to get a hot chick to desire your body (become rich is my advice). But this is a fantasy football guide and there will be no talk of games nerds play, your job or getting some wild action (OK, there will be plenty of talk about the last one). This article is how to guide for football auctions. Let’s set some ground rules for the discussion.

What is an auction? In an auction you get the chance to roster any club you want. Whereas in a snake draft you’re stuck taking whomever you want when it’s your turn, an auction allows you the freedom to simply have at it. You can spend your cash anyway you want until you run out of it. Any player you want is an option for you.

In an auction draft, you are given a set amount of fake money to spend on players. The standards are $100 and $200. We will use the larger one as a reference point in this article.

You can spend your allotted cash any way you want to fill out your roster. If you want to dump $160 dollars of your money on four superstars and then fill out your roster with a bunch of regular Joes then you can (this is called the Stars and Scrubs approach). You can choose a more equitable approach, kind of like a mutual fund, where you spread your resources evenly over the majority of your roster (this is the Balanced Approach). Those are the two basic approaches. For those of you that are new to the auction game or if you don’t feel like you understand the player pool with complete certainty, I would recommend that you go with more of the “Balanced Approach.” I can go further by offering a blue print and an actual outline to follow to give you an idea of how to spend your money at each position. Before I get to it, realize that you can set any spending limits you want. What follows is merely a middle ground option that you could follow to find success.

We will have to use some baseline for players in order to illustrate the blueprint, so let’s assume we’re talking about a league with the following roster slots: 1 QB, 2 RB, 3 WR, 1 TE, 1 Flex (RB/WR/TE), 1 Kicker, 1 Defense and 6 bench players. If our roster looked like that, here’s a simple outline to follow to keep your spending in order:

1 QB - $20

2 RB - $30, $30

3 WR - $30, $20, $10

1 TE - $10

1 Flex (RB/WR/TE) - $25

1 Kicker - $1

1 Defense - $2

Bench six players: $22 left to spend

If you spend $25 on a quarterback instead of $20, that’s fine. You can just adjust quickly by taking the money away from another spot. Maybe you spend $20 at the flex instead of $25. Of course you could adjust two spots and spend $22 at flex and $7 at tight end, etc. Again, you can move the money around any way you want, but it might be smart to make a plan like this prior to the draft. Not only will it give you a concrete idea of how much money you should roughly be spending at the draft, but it will also have the added benefit of keeping you on budget. Things go awfully quick at an auction, so once the bullets start flying you’ll have an easy way to calculate how much you’ve spent and how much you have left to spend to build your winning squad.

Now that we’ve got a rough outline of how to attack an auction draft, let’s dig into the guts of it. In fact, I’ll pull back the curtain and reveal some of the tips you have access to when you use Fantasy Alarm as your source. That’s right, I’m more than just a pretty face. I actually have some substance to me, maybe even wisdom some might say. Enough with the personal patting on the back, though I am fond of saluting myself. I know. I’ve got a problem.

Be focused. A simple yet often forgotten concept. Don’t be talking to your league mates, chatting on text, or trying to get a date on Tinder (I’ve never done that). Be focused on the task at hand – dominating your draft. You can get back to ruining your life in a couple of hours after the draft is over. By “ruining” I really mean making it awesome.

Realize you will make a mistake at some point and be prepared to let it go. All of us, even the Oracle, screw up at times (I just screw up less than all of you do). Don’t dwell in a misstep. Get upset for 15 seconds then let it go. You can stew after the draft is over. If you let the mistake weigh on you during the draft you’re very likely to make another mistake and then we’re getting into the danger zone.

Have one source you trust with you at the draft table. I see it all the time. Someone has three magazines and two websites open on their laptop at a draft. They’re getting frazzled rifling through five sources trying to get an answer to something. My advice would be to have one source. Have one single source you can turn to (I recommend this guide of course). Keep it simple. We’re not trying to get our secondary degree in astrophysics.

Have a plan but be willing to go in another direction. You might think that you’re going to build your team around Aaron Rodgers, but perhaps the cost to acquire him is nutso. If that’s the case, you would be advised to let him go to the person who was huffing on the crack pipe and amend your strategy on the fly. This means that you’ll need to do some draft preparation so you know what direction to turn. You know that though. You’ve already picked up a copy of the Fantasy Alarm Draft Guide so you’re well out front.

Don’t be the person that has no idea how much a player costs. Simple but oh so important. We all know a guy like Rob Gronkowski is elite and will cost a ton. How much though? Moreover, what about guys like Vernon Davis or Kyle Rudolph? Are they just dollar players or worth more than that? You need to know the value of players before their name is called out. If you wait until someone nominates a player you’ll be scrambling, and truthfully, flippin’ hosed. Know the cost of players. It’s also super annoying when the bidding goes like this: Greg Olsen for $1, $2, $3, $4… and then he finally goes for $9. Come on. You know that Olsen isn’t going off the board for a dollar. At least do something like $5 to help move the bidding along.

Don’t be afraid to bid heavily and early if the right players are tossed out there or if there are bargains to be had. If you targeted Cam Newton, Larry Fitzgerald and Carlos Hyde, and they are all nominated off the top, get in there and start bidding. It’s all right to spend money, even if it’s early, if you’re spending it wisely and on the right players. Let’s say you never thought of targeting Drew Brees because you’re worried about his advancing age and the likely scheme change of the Saints offense. But you’re sitting there at the draft and it seems likely everyone is thinking the same thing. As a result, Brees is sitting there at ¾ the cost of what you had him down for on your rankings sheet. Again, he may not be your first choice but you know he’s going to be effective and at a 25 percent discount. How can you not bid on him? You’re right, you have to bid.

Don’t overbid substantially for a player. If you want to surpass your estimated cost by a buck or two that’s fine, but don’t be the person that “has to have” a guy which results in spending 10 percent more than you had budgeted for a player. It’s fine to target players, but don’t get “vapor lock” so you miss what is going on.

Don’t be afraid to make “jump” bids. Let’s use the Olsen example again. Someone says “Olsen for $1.” The natural inclination for folks is to continue along with the dollar bidding. But if we know that Gates is going to go for more than $2, if you know you’re willing to pay more, then why not do a bid more commensurate with his talent and your desire to spend? If someone says $1 then make a jump bid to $5. In fact, if you’re willing to spend $9 on him then jump the bidding to $7. If you get him for $7 that’s still less than you wanted to spend. Plus, it’s a power move that will scare some folks straight out of the bidding. You look assertive. You’re inside the others heads. You’re a boss. Just like with the ladies – confidence is supremely important.

Don’t be afraid to be patient. There is an important balance to discuss. I say it all the time – drafts are more art than science. No plan covers everything that happens at a draft, and the potential outcomes are exponentially larger in an auction. If you don’t like the first 18 guys nominated in the bidding process, then don’t bid. At some point you will have to jump into the mix, but it all depends on what players come up through the process. Maybe you pass on the first 18 guys nominated and then roster four of the next seven. There’s a fine line between what your roster looks like, what the other rosters look like and how much cash you have left to spend on players. It’s not necessarily a bad thing to be patient and let others bid away on players that you have concerns about.

Change up your nomination process. You don’t always have to nominate the best player on the board. In fact, going in another direction could throw folks off. People are extremely unlikely to push the bidding aggressively if you toss out Steve Smith for $4 early in the nominating process as opposed to when ten of the top 20 wideouts are still left for bidding. People are still going to be focused on the big name guys because everyone always is, so use that to your advantage. Also, you don’t always have to nominate players you like. It’s ok to toss out a guy you don’t want/need/like and let others bid away at that player. This strategy can be particularly useful in certain scenarios such as: (1) when 10 of 12 teams (including you) have a quarterback then nominate another one and see if you can get one of the other two teams to overbid; and (2) if you have no interest in having a particular player on your roster then go nominate him early and watch others spend their money to acquire his services. This leads to one last point - don’t nominate a player you don’t want to roster at full price. You don’t want to get stuck with a guy because you tossed him out there with a bid that scared others off from bidding.

Track the rosters of others so you know what their needs/wants might be. If 10 of 12 teams already have their quarterback and it’s your turn to nominate, do you have to throw out a quarterback next? Of course you don’t. This isn’t a snake draft. You have to remove the mindset that says you must now get the quarterback at the next possible chance because you do not. Be patient. If you are astute, you can use other clubs’ needs to your advantage. Tracking the rosters of others can also be a big boon to you by helping you to understand if a run on a position is going to start. If only two tight ends are off the board and we’re now into the sixth round of nominating, you know tight ends are going to start flying. In addition, track the funds that others have left to spend. It’s great to know what positions the opponent needs to fill but it’s even more important to know how much cash they have to fill those spots. Team A might really want Martellus Bennett to be their tight end, but if they have five roster spots left and $14 to fill them, they can only bid a maximum of $10 on Bennett. If you know that and you want Bennett, why not quickly push the bidding to $10 when Bennett’s name comes up? Team A won’t be able to surpass that bid. Tracking other clubs remaining cash also helps you to plan out which players you can toss out in the bidding process.

If you want a certain kicker toss his name out early. How many guys are going to go to $2 on a kicker in the first or second round of nominations? If someone does, let them. You just got an extra buck out of a guy that he won’t have to spend on a more important player.

You don’t have to handcuff your running back. You really don’t. We would all like to handcuff our top runner, but it’s not always reasonable to do so. Do you spend twice as much as you think the player is worth merely to roster a backup that may never play for you? Do you know for sure who is really the second running back to own? It’s not always clear what will happen if the star runner goes down.

I say this every year… don’t drink at an auction. It’s bad enough to pull back a couple of brewskies in a snake draft, but getting a bit tipsy at an auction is a recipe for disaster.

Have fun with an auction, but be prepared to set your club on the road to success in 2015.