I was having my morning cuppa a couple of days ago when I get a text from Tom Torero, freshly returned from a Prague bootcamp, saying words to the effect of “check out Sam’s infield we’ve just put up from yesterday”. Check it out I do. Good gosh, the young whippersnapper has really come on leaps and bounds this year. So to do my dear readers a favour and protect them from all the charlatans and pretenders clogging up Youtube with shitty infields, let me introduce you to an (almost) textbook pickup in the London manner.

Play it again, Sam.

0:02 – Tom tells me she gave Sam a brief look as she walked past, pre-approach. Whether Sam was standing like this at the time is unknown to me.

0:17 – Note how empty and slow the street is in contrast to the bustle of Oxford Street on a Saturday afternoon. Sam adjusts his energy accordingly. A playful jog to keep his playful state but no big jump-infront, just the looping ‘Torero Drift’

0:24 – I think her immediate laugh was in recognition that this is a guy she’d just smiled at. Girls giggle and laugh to communicate “I like this, please continue” rather than “this is funny”. It’s probably a Yes Girl, or at least a strong Maybe. He got major points from her for being savvy enough to recognise an approach invitation and ballsy enough to act upon it.

0:28 – She stops dead. A strong hook. Note he reels off the usual words, “really nice” rather than over-egging it even though she’s a proper hottie.

0:31 – She’s into it immediately. Sam’s biggest challenge here is to control his state. He’s got a very very hot girl infront of him and it seems to be hooking. I’ve been there – it’s hard not to immediately run around with your shirt over your head celebrating. Or to let your voice crack and your eyes give you away. He must continue to project “I normally get this reaction from girls of your calibre.” But inside, you know he’s jumping for joy.

0:37 – Boilerplate language when she gives you her country is “I’ve never been to [country] but I imagine [assumption]”. Like I said this is a textbook set. Note the tease on the end and the giggle it gets.

0:44 – “Where are you from?” is confirmation of hook point. He answers briefly and vacuums which draws another question from her and….. light kino. Girls never kino you by accident. It’s a strong hook and she’s beginning to invest.

0:56 – Her hand on the hip is another signal that she’s into this.

1:05 – He turns it back onto her but note how he cheekily references her legs to sexualise slightly. Man-Woman vibe. Smooth. I’d have added “like a flamingo”. Or a giraffe.

1:16 – This is a strange eventuality to analyse. She leads him which is far from ideal, but there was no other option to avoid the car so he reframes it playfully. It could also be read as investment from her.

1:23 – When she talks, let her talk. Whoever is talking is investing. He’s just standing still and looking at her. Probably putting a bit of eye-mesmer onto her, but the video isn’t clear enough to tell. Resist the temptation to do too much.

1:30 – Nice compliance test. You must always get a girl to remove her sunglasses asap or it’ll prevent good eye contact. I’m guessing he tried the eye mesmer and realised the glasses had to go.

1:40 – Unimpressed by her modelling, reframed to make her self-conscious. A textbook covert withholding of validation.

1:46 – There’s enough attraction now so Sam dials it down a bit with normal chat and probes logistics. It’s always good to ask why she’s there in case you get a “I leave tomorrow” and you have to shift gears into SDL / idate mode.

1:53 – “ok” and “I understand”. The two most common things you’ll say as you start to draw her into investing. Note how the relative work rate between them has flipped now.

2:01 – An attempt to prod her into more investment (“goulash”) doesn’t hit so he turns it into a mild challenge. She knows he’s not gonna kiss her ass and agree with everything. This shows personal boundaries.

2:10 – Note her leg movement. Tom likens it to horses pawing the ground while they are excited. She’s flush with adrenalin. You have to be careful here – if you are trying to spike then this is great. However too much of it will detract from your investment and settling her down enough to solidify the set.

2:21 – He turns it back to her again. Keep talking about the girl. Its hoists her by her own solipsism and also maintains a screening frame.

2:30 – Boom! We’ll call that a spike. She immediately tries to break the sexual tension.

2:51 – This is the weakest portion of the set. Bumbling a little, sounding a bit too keen. It’s really hard to keep on point the whole way through with a hot girl, especially when you’re ad-libbing it all. What the set really needed now was some gravitas. Lower the voice, talk about more boring stuff. It’s too fizzy for too long.

3:03 – I think Sam can feel the momentum slipping now. Ideally he’d want to stay another five or ten minutes to bed it down but that little bumbling moment has knocked him off-balance so he’s decided to cut and run before he fucks up an otherwise professional piece of work. I know that feeling of suddenly having the play taken away from you and no longer having access to the free-wheeling analogue word-play. Better to take a number now than fuck it up and get dismissed later.

3:10 – You can feel the drop in conviction on the close. Deep down he’s a bit pissed off he couldn’t hold the frame better. He stumbles on his words a bit and uptalks.

3:17 – Little things like having her point out the paper stuck to his foot could be mismanaged. He handles this one fine. Don’t deny the reality of the situation, don’t try and pretend you are James Bond. He laughes it off, authentically.

3:23 – How little names actually matter.

3:27 – Yet another IOI. He’s still in the game. Just remember street stops are a big ask. With a girl like this you are red-lining your car. Minor slips can send you skidding into the wall.

3:42 – Compare his vocal tone, pacing, and creativity to just thirty seconds ago. He’s regained his mojo now she’s agreed to exchange numbers. It’s subtle but it’s there.

4:33 – Ask yourself this question: “Does it look natural that a guy like him is with a girl like that?” I think it does. He’s conveyed enough of his value in the past four minutes that she no longer seems out of his league.

4:49 – It’s important to act like getting her number is no big deal. Sure, it’s a postive but its not a major score. Hold the frame that a man like you expects to have girls like that. More grist to the mill.

5:00 – With a fully-returned mojo he decides to string it along a bit more, no longer in danger of blowing it.

Overall I’m giving this set 7/10. It was textbook work on a top-tier girl with good attraction, decent investment and competent handling of a few curveballs. However it was still missing elements to lift it into excellence. Specifically, Sam would have benefitted from:

• Greater gravitas. His voice remained quite soft and high and his body language a bit weightless at times. He was more cheeky chappy than grizzly bear. Less movement, less uptalk, lower voice next time please.
• The energy wasn’t sufficiently dialled down to engage in the boring chit-chat that characterises good investment. The beginning was beautifully pitched and fizzy but after about a minute that needs to be dialled down. When you’re in investment you are lulling her to sleep. All those flashy vids you see on Youtube are bullshit. Tight game quickly becomes like two narcoleptics almost nodding off.
• He dropped his bottle half-way through and had to pull out a recovery. Tight game doesn’t have those dramatics. The best sets are like the best defence in football – the opponents never gets into a position dangerous enough that the defender must make a last-ditch tackle. He needs more reference experiences with girls of this calibre to truly feel entitled to them.
• Ultimately she was a strong Maybe Girl. She made it relatively easy for him by complying from the beginning and putting alot of herself into the conversation. The real test is a girl who gives you the Russian Minute.