As noted in my previous post, I’ve been reading The Numbers Game, a statistical deconstruction of football. It’s been inspiring in its analysis, giving that sense of intellectual power that comes when you realise a vague, complex, artistic activity can be data-mined and understood by the intelligent application of a statistical mindset. Regular readers can imagine the direction my mind turned.

While I’d love to do a rigorous data collection exercise for the sport I love – adventure sex – I fear it’s far beyond the scope of one man. The sports analytics community is hundreds strong with many full-time staff at sports clubs and tremendous technology. So, daygame will have to wait. However, in the spirit of Christmas let me offer you my 2014 stats. As with last year, only the lays are a 100% reliable number. Everything else involves a degree of estimation because I didn’t keep records.

Working on my new book

Opens: I racked my memory to estimate how many days I went out each month and roughly how many sets I did per day then multiplied one by the other. I was dormant throughout Q1, barely opening. Q2 I hit it hard in Russia, Serbia and Czech Republic. Q3 was so-so, and Q4 I had a final roll of the dice when I wasn’t crippled by toothache. This opens number is accurate to the nearest 100. I’d have liked to have opened more but all manner of things derailed me.
Numbers: I tend to get one phone number or social media add for every four girls I talk to. This hasn’t changed from last year. I rarely bother asking if she doesn’t seem keen. So this total is just ¼ of the Opens estimate
Dates: I tend to bang half the girls I get onto a first date, so this is just double the lays number with a few added on because of a bad run in Russia. In Russia I had a run of dates-to-nowhere in April, whereas in Prague in November I banged 4 of the 6 girls I dated (one of the LMR knockbacks was, and remains, a virgin so I don’t feel too bad about that one).
Lays: This number is exact. I kept notes and it’s memorable enough that I don’t really need the notes.

• Opens: 480 (London 50, Russia 100, Serbia 150, Czech 100, Croatia 40, Hungary 40)
• Numbers: 120
• Dates: 50
• iDates: 15
• Lays: 23 new girls, 8 repeats from prior year

So that’s one lay per 21 opens. It sounds about right. I always do better on the road and I was barely in London this year. It represents an almost doubling of my efficiency from 2013, and the girls averaged about a half point hotter. So, improvement. Unlike 2013 (which was very consistent), my anecdotal feel for 2014 is that my results were volatile. Nineteen (82%) of my lays came within four of the months (April, May, July, November) when I was most active and least hindered by illness or outside interference.

• SDL: 1  (a virgin)
• SNL: 1
• Day 2 lay: 6
• Day 3/4 lay: 12
• Long Game lay: 3

Compared to last year that’s a bit slower, I think mainly because I wasn’t getting London tourists so I was dealing with more chaste girls and also my average trip length went up from two weeks to one month meaning I was no longer in a hurry to close. Nothing went beyond the third date (D4) except the Long Game. I was also doing “marking time” coffee second-dates of an hour which hit the numbers but don’t really take much of my time. Let’s consider the geographical distribution:

• Sex in same country we met: 22
• Sex in different country to open: 1

And for the Long Game:

• Sex where she came to London for me: 1
• Sex where I went back to her country: 2
• Sex where we both went to a neutral country: 0

Now lets get to the ages. I’m 39. The average age of girl I slept with was 23, making a 16-year average age difference. More stats:

• Youngest: 19
• Oldest: 30
• Number of girls under 23: 13
• Number of girls over 23: 10

I fucked six 20yr olds and three 19yr olds, which is very pleasing. Let’s consider nationalities (not ethnicity). I’d say the Slavs and Balkans were the hottest as usual, averaging 8s. Overall I think eleven of the girls were legit 8s (I feel some pride having them on my arm), three were 6s (not too proud of myself) and the rest were 7s. I’m very strict on what I call a 9 (gobsmacking beauty that turns heads everywhere) there were only two girls who might be called a nine but I think they didn’t quite make the cut. I had a few nines on dates.

• Slavic: 12
• Balkan: 8
• Western Europe: 2
• Anglosphere: 0
• Latino: 1

The nationality is heavily skewed by my choice of holiday destinations. The furthest West I visited was Czech Republic. I never left Europe and missed the opportunity to pick up the more diverse London crowd. Now lets consider the self-reported chastity of the girls involved. I interviewed most of the girls after sex to find out all manner of things, such as when they decided to fuck and how many men they’d had before me. Bear in mind these are self-reported numbers and girls aren’t entirely truthful (to put it mildly). I think I got more truth than a k-selected guy but I’d take these following numbers with a pinch of salt.

• Virgin: 3
• 1 or 2 men before me: 5
• 3 to 10 men: 4
• 10+ men: 1
• Didn’t ask / didn’t tell: 10

Just over half the girls gave me an answer, the others I didn’t ask (except for one I asked and she didn’t tell me). The virgins I am certain of because I felt the hymen break and saw the blood. I suspect two of the “didn’t ask” were over ten based on how comfortable they were with the seduction and sex. The rest I put under ten based on same criteria. But you never really know. I’ve also racked my brain for near misses. I only count them as a near miss if the girl was totally up for it, had her hand on my dick, I’d had my hand on her pussy, and she’s either agreed to come to my place or we’d been in a sex location. It’s a bit of a muddy definition but every single one of these girls I was certain I was going to fuck and then it fell apart at the last minute:

• Near misses: 7
• Failure due to LMR at sex location: 5
• Failure due to unexpected outside forces: 2 (both virgins)
• Failure due to logistical errors: 0

So in summary, I had to do approximately twenty opens to bang one low-eight who was sixteen years younger than me. I’m pretty happy with that. That’s basically two day’s graft for a new girl and not many dates-to-nowhere. I also had greater retention of girls from prior years still wanting the Krauser D. Importantly, my results continued to improve on almost every index. I’m not sure how I’ll manage to outperform that through 2015 but generally if I turn my mind to something, I figure it out. I’m inclined to go for higher quality, less work, and less notches this year.

Most of you will know all about Tom Torero, formerly head instructor for Daygame.com, author of two daygame memoirs, and more recently creator of the Badass Buddha video. He’s one of the few people in the game who’s opinion I value. So I’m mightily pleased that he likes Primal Seduction. Check out the full review below.

UPDATE – A savvy reader notes Lulu are offering a big discount if you enter the correct coupon code at the checkout. Currently the one that works is:  SMG14 — Free Shipping & GETIT15 — 15% OFF  Total Price: $76.87 USD

‘Tis the season to be nerdy. Krauser’s asked me to compile my 2013 stats into some sort of document for a free blog post and reader devouring historic preservation. After his selfless proof-reading of my forthcoming daygame travel book, how could I say no?

Like him, I didn’t keep exact records for number of opens, number of contacts or number of dates. The lays I wrote down and are thus 100% accurate. 2013 was a year of epic travelling for me teaching bootcamps and students in 25 countries and daygaming in 31 cities, from New York to Moscow. I got 30 new lays in total.

I was lucky enough to travel with some solid mates and wings. My travelling compadres included Krauser (in Vilnius, Prague and Belgrade), Jon Matrix, Yad, Sam Django, Dave Diggler and Martin from the daygame.com team.

However, I did very few daygame sessions for myself. A lot of my time on the streets was with students (I taught 28 bootcamps, 64 private students and 2 week-long residentials). As part of the coaching I demoed and got numbers, but the only personal full-on number farming trips I had were with Krauser (Lithuania, Prague), Sam (Sweden, Prague) and Martin (New York). I’m not going to estimate how many girls I opened as I really don’t have a clue, but I know it was much lower than 2012 and 2011 back in London.

I estimate that in addition to the above, I did 25 full days of daygame for myself (with the above wings). Including all the numbers from demos while coaching studentsm, I collected between 280 and 300 contact details. I estimate that I went on around 70 – 80 dates. I did much fewer i-dates than in previous years because for a lot of the interactions I was demoing for students.

New flags captured were: Iran, Portugal, Egypt, Serbia and South Korea.

New lays with flags I’d already got were: Great Britain, Russia, Germany, Italy, USA, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Poland, Turkey, Brazil, Spain, Sweden and Finland.

The dating breakdown of the lays was:

SDLs :8

D2 lays: 10

D3+ lays: 12

I’m 34 years old. The oldest girl I slept with this year was a 34 year old MILF in London. The youngest was an 18 year old university student in New York.

Number of girls under 25: 18

Number of girls over 25: 12

The quality of the girls (as testified by my wings) was above average as I pushed myself through a self-imposed ceiling. 2 of the girls were “6s”, 17 were “7s”, 10 were “8s” and 1 was a “9.”

The 9

Lay highlights included fucking the 21 year old “9” Go-Go dancer from Riga (see above), 3 new girls in 3 days, SDLing a cabin crew assistant from Turkish Airlines and laying the first girl that I approached on my last trip to New York. I also had a MMF with a flatmate.

Memorable failures included near-misses with two different potential foursomes (one with Sam in Prague and one with Krauser in Belgrade). I got punched twice (once by a girl’s husband in a Moscow club and once by a girl’s friend in Istanbul). I lost out on a lay with a “Yes Girl” model in Prague when the hotel I was staying at wouldn’t let her in as a guest.

My plans for 2014 are to open, date and try and close far fewer girls but of a consistently higher quality, pushing for more “9s.” After 150+ lays I’m done with the Notch-Count Hyena. It’s time for the Quality Control Lion. Grand, noble, patient, doing less but catching a tasty meal.

“Good work, my son”

I thought I’d sign-off by answering three predictable chode comments in advance that are often thrown in the direction of Krauser and I:

“You only travel / open / sleep with foreign girls because English girls are harder”

Girls are biologically all the same – if you’re a chode in your home country you’ll be a chode abroad. The real reason we travel / open / sleep with foreign girls is that they’re hotter. Don’t try daygame abroad until you’ve nailed the skillset where you live as it’s harder away from home: you have to act fast as the nomadic lover instead of the provider boyfriend, logistics and time are against you, you have to manage your state (which has an unhealthy focus on outcome through necessity) and you have to deal with the stresses and strains of travel. I’ve slept with many English girls (check out the lay reports in my first book) and daygame / dating works exactly the same.

“Girls sleep with you for your money / passport / accent”

High value girls sleep with high value guys. End of. The “pussy paradise” you’re imagining doesn’t exist, it’s a White Knight fantasy of a place with desperate girls that need rescuing from local guys. If you believe it’s so easy, go and try it. Paying the bar bill in some tittie bar and taking home a hooker in Thailand this is not. In places like the FSU, girls are much harder to daygame than in London. Many countries have cultures and religions where fast dating and quick sex is very rare. You’re trying to achieve in a few days what it takes local guys months or years to achieve. In many ways, western men are lower value than locals in FSU countries because of Feminism and sexual hangups. Go to Serbia and observe the men who you’re going head-to-head with . You’re also competing with the provider chumps offering these girls trips to Dubai or rides in their Ferrari. Remember that Moscow has the most billionaires in the world.

“You spam approach and open thousands of girls to get a date or a lay”

I wish I had the energy to open thousands a year. The more you do daygame, the more lethargic you get. In 2012 and 2013 I also continued to experience “Game revulsion” as I burnt out from all the travelling and teaching. I did a fraction of the opening I did when I was learning Game in 2010 and 2011. Compared to the guys in clubs who I see opening every set as part of their smash-and-grab beasting, or the approach machine robots I see on Oxford Street at Saturday lunchtime, I open like a pensioner on weed.

Happy 2014 to you glorious bastards – onwards and inwards 😉

Tom Torero

In the new book I write quite a lot about expectations and reality in daygame. It seems only fair that as 2013 draws to a close and I sit in my dressing gown sipping coffee, running a hot bath, I should offer some summary statistics for the year. Most of these numbers rely upon estimates because I didn’t keep notes. Only the final laycount is 100% reliable.

My New Year’s Eve

Opens: I racked my memory to estimate how many days I went out each month and roughly how many sets I did per day then multiplied one by the other. The only months I’m absolutely sure of are February (in Brazil, did almost nothing), April (I actually kept notes that month, I was very active), May, November and December (very little work). The rest is a blur. Most times when I do a “full session” I’ll open 10-15 girls. Some days I do one open, get an idate and then I’m finished. This opens number is accurate to the nearest 300.

Numbers: I tend to get one phone number or social media add for every four girls I talk to. I rarely bother asking if she doesn’t seem keen. So this total is just ¼ of the Opens estimate

Dates: I tend to bang half the girls I get onto a first date, so this is just double the lays number.

Lays: This number is exact. I kept notes and it’s memorable enough that I don’t really need the notes.

Opens: 1,000

Numbers: 250

Dates: 60

iDates: 15

Lays: 27 new girls, 3 repeats from prior years

So that’s one lay per 37 opens. It sounds about right. I think it’s 1 in 20 on holiday and 1 in 50 in London. Now lets categorise the lays.

SDL: 5

SNL: 3

Day 2 lay: 7

Day 3+ lay: 7

Long Game lay: 5

So there’s no particular pattern there. Let’s consider the geographical distribution:

Sex in same country we met: 25

Sex in different country to open: 2 (the two long game lays in neutral country)

And for the Long Game:

Sex where she came back to London: 1

Sex where I went back to her country: 2

Sex where we both went to a neutral country: 2

Now lets get to the ages. I’m 38. The average age of girl I slept with was 25, making a 13-year average age difference. Only one girl didn’t tell me her age, a Brazilian who didn’t speak English. I’d estimate her as mid-twenties. More stats:

Youngest: 20

Oldest: 30

Number of girls under 25: 14

Number of girls over 25: 13

Let’s consider nationalities (not ethnicity). I’d say the Slavs and Balkans were the hottest, averaging 8s. Overall I think twelve of the girls were legit 8s (I feel some pride having them on my arm), four were 6s (not too proud of myself) and the rest were 7s. I’m very strict on what I call a 9 (gobsmacking beauty that turns heads everywhere) and though I dated and made out with a few I never banged any in 2013:

Slavic: 9

Balkan: 4

Western Europe: 4

Anglosphere: 2

Latino: 6

Other: 2

I’ve also racked my brain for near misses. I only count them as a near miss if the girls was totally up for it, had her hand on my dick, I’d had my hand on her pussy, and she’s either agreed to come to my place or we’d been in a sex location. It’s a bit of a muddy definition but every single one of these girls I was certain I was going to fuck and then it fell apart at the last minute:

Near misses: 12

Failure due to LMR at sex location: 6

Failure due to unexpected outside forces: 3

Failure due to logistical errors: 3

I’d say I’m pretty happy with those stats. There’s room for improvement but at the quality I’m tapping, it’s nice to know I only have to open 40 girls to get laid once. That’s basically two or three day’s graft for a new girl and not many dates-to-nowhere.

Those of you in the UK may have read The Daily Mash. For yanks, it’s like The Onion. Sometimes vignettes of other people’s lives make you feel like you’ve landed in Bizarro World where up is down and black is white. So it is with Vince Kelvin mPUA.

What a fucking clown.

While sitting in a Belgrade apartment overlooking parliament square Tom and I are talking about the realities of the pick-up community. There are some real businesses that produce good products from talented practictioners and then market them. That’s what CocaCola and Apple do in their field. Real businesses. There’s others who are pure internet scammers who have no real product but instead produce a masterful “long form sales” letters to funnel the lonely and the desperate into inputing credit card details to order a product they don’t even watch.

And then there’s low-IQ deluded chode wranglers who are so insanely lacking feedback from reality that they have become the PUA Spinal Tap. Reigning supreme amongst them is Vince Kelvin, the PUA oompa loompa. I had the honour of watching this video today. Imagine the worst dregs of spirtualism, NLP, Neil Strauss weirdo game, attempted rock star posturing all dumped into one swill bucket that’s left in the mid-day sun.

0:04 – This the only compliance he gets from a girl in the entire twenty minutes. And later we’ll see him fuck it up.

0:17 – This is the major smoke and mirrors trick he uses. Go up to girls, shower them with softly-sexualised attention and then do visual compliance tests for the camera. Note he never breaks social politeness so the girls will give soft compliance rather than be the social violators by refusing. Crucially, they don’t move. He has to orbit them to keep the set going.

0:49 – Let’s talk about calibration…… understanding the woman’s position and what she will think of your approach…..

1:38 – Spiritual mumbo jumbo. As the video progresses you’ll note a constant part of his reality-weave is to tell the chodes what they are seeing. A normal person may think “creepy guy hollering at uninterested girls” so they must be framed to see it as connection and outgoing behaviour.

3:01 – All the chodes have jobs to position Vince as the rock star pack leader. It’s highly unlikely they are paying for this “boot camp”. Really it’s not a boot camp to teach the guys, it’s a chode wrangle to patch up Vince’s false idealised self…. disguised as a bootcamp.

3:19 – That’s what fear looks like. Deep down his hindbrain isn’t fooled but enough smoke has been blown up his arse that he can’t trust his instinct and what his eyes are telling him about this grotesque parody he is living.

3:43 – This entire video, just like the “bootcamp”, is the Vince-aggrandizing show. It’s all about drawing narcisstic supply from the viewers and his chode hangers-on.

4:50 – The rock star arrives at the hotel…….. a two star hotel without any fans waiting…..

5:45 – This is why you should be sensitive to IODs in an ambush set. Look at how creeped-out she is.

6:55 – You may throw up into your mouth here. They all look so… uncomfortable. There’s massive cognitive dissonance in the chodes’ brains between the bullshit Vince has poured into their forebrain and the instinctive hindbrain reaction.

8:38 – If he talks enough about what will happen and reframes what is happening perhaps they won’t realise there are no women around.

9:17 – The gap between myth and reality is astonishing. Look at the epic size of those dumbells.

10:09 – That’s what creeped-out looks like

11:24 – More aggressive reality-weaving. So far it’s a rock tour without the music or fans. It’s literally 11 minutes of men talking to each other in cars, elevators, gym and hotel rooms about what’s gonna happen (and doesn’t actually happen). And occasionally creeping out a girl who gives no compliance.

12:21 – It’s all pull. No push, no tease, no challenging.

12:58 – Have you seen the slightest look of interest or attraction on any of the girls’ faces? They always have the look like they are thinking “Ok, just be polite, don’t add anything, and hopefully he’ll fuck off without causing a scene”

13:37 – We now enter the only section of the video where he has a girl attracted to him. Watch the girl in white carefully. She begins with good interest levels and is quite horny. Watch the eyes and subtle body language.

13:51 – That’s interest. She’s turned towards him, constantly looking at him, moves in close to look at texts. He’s successfully pawned off all his chodes to make himself King Chode. So naturally the girl responds to this parasite game. Remember the chodes are there for the sole purpose of enabling Vince’s delusional lifestyle.

14:07 – She’s mesmerised. She wants to fuck. It’s his to lose now.

14:21 – That’s the fuck me look. She needs comfort, isolation and a close. This would be a great time to walk her to another part of the hotel on a thin pretext. But of course he can’t do that because he’s addicted to the validation hits of attraction material and he needs to perform for the chodes.

14:41 – Stop playing to the camera and close the girl.

14:52 – So far it’s working. Now watch how he completely destroys the vibe by acting like a little kid who’s just won a gold star. Each successive kiss has less compliance and more desperation from him. She senses he’s fake as shit and doesn’t usually get makeouts with young girls and thus he’s far too proud of what’s happening. Her alarm bells trigger and she disengages.

15:33 – Notice he’s always leaning into her, going towards her, when he should be having her come to him. It’s to cover the lack of compliance.

15:49 – He has to make an entrance, like a rock star.

15:53 – Note the aggressive framing and postioning. Most of the *ahem* mPUAs are really gaming men not women. It’s chode wrangling. Little different to Hollywood moguls filling a silly girl’s head full of dreams and bright lights to get a grot fuck in a parking lot. Sell the dream and empty the pockets. Even better, recruit the chodes as fuel for your delusions.

16:08 – Looking around the room my main advice to these bottom-feeders would be “don’t bother”. Really. Most guys are not cut out for Game. Most of these men just need a makeover, a workout plan and then very simple social skills. They’ll find a chubby 6 who has hit 30 and needs a provider. They can marry her and have a reasonably happy life with some love and affection. Knocking over Hungarian teenagers in a coffee shop toilets will never be in their reality so stop selling them an impossible dream. It sounds harsh to mock Vince and his chode army but the simple fact is he is ruining these guys by filling their heads with unrealistic expectations and then stringing them along until they implode. It’s not healthy.

16:18 – Note his head chodes are at the front table. Feed them minor status increments over the drone chodes.

16:29 – Do you think there’s anyone on the other end of that call?

16:57 – …. ahem….. WTF? A chicken dance?

17:15 – And ironically some of his material is actually on the money. I agree with the basic thrust of this segment.

18:49 – Watch for some serious smoke and mirrors here. The editing and sequencing is designed to lead you into thinking this is an extraction and close… which it clearly isn’t. Of course if he had closed he’d find a way to prove it… such as by calling into his bedroom to get her to reply for the audio evidence there really is a girl in that room.

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.

Django, unchained

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.