Re: y4x.com: BTC awarded on first block that has a bid
Sounds like the miner didn't have your tx... or he discriminates against high fees 
My tx had a lot of small inputs - which is why the default client decided to include 3 times the usual fee I guess.
The miner may have decided it's better to include 3 small transactions rather than my 1 big one.
It just happened again by the way. This time both transactions had the same minimum fee, but only the initial bet got into the block:
http://blockchain.info/address/1Y4jkMHYjG8M9GeTgCZvkmsQLdwP9Q9me
In this case my transaction was smaller than the first bet, since it only had one input.
How many nodes are you connected to with your sending client? Blockchain.info is very easy to get broadcast to because they have 2500+ connections with their custom implementation. You need more connections to increase your chances to get to miners maybe?