And the winner is....

We have a tie for first place this week, and it shouldn't come as a surprise that Raph and Rita "We-Own-The-World" Charon will share the grand prize in the same way that they share apartments, Chinese food and lacy undergarments. With a bid of 1.25 million (aaaaaaactual retail price: 1.185 million), this is Raph's second consecutive win, making him the undisputed champion of the game thus far. Raph had better keep his edge, though, because he has close competition from the likes of Kathryn "Vuitton" Kallison-Schwesinger, whose bid of 1.095 million was only 25,000 euros further away. For their skill in pricing premium palatial properties, Raph and Rita win a lifetime supply of storage space in the Alexanderpool basement, complete with free use of mothballs and mousetraps.

To help soothe the sting of bitter defeat in this hotly contested round, we decided we'd toss the competition some conciliatory prizes, as below:

2d place: Damien "The Spoiler" Vanderpool, with a bid of 1.251 million, who wins lifetime use of Microsoft Spellchecker for all his comment posting needs.

3d place: Kathryn "Vuitton" Kallison-Schwesinger, with a bid of 1.095 million, who wins a fabulous stay at the Hotel Alexanderpool in beautiful Paris, complete with breakfast each morning, daily shiatsu massage (from Eric) and a 15-minute session in our patented "bubble bath".

4th place: Claire "Canuck" Skrinda, with a bid of 1.0 million, who as a Canadian wins the right never to have to decide between American politicians like Bush and Kerry in any election.

5th place: Derek "Not Eric" Vanderpool and Eric "Not Derek" Schwesinger, each with a bid of 1.75 million, who win something that will hopefully teach them how to play a game with balls.

6th place: Panagiota Alexandropoulos, with a bid of 2.7 million, who wins a comforting hug and kiss from yours truly for being sooooo bad at this game.

Click here to check out the full listing.