What happened to game?

It has been a great two weeks so far here in Serbia. The sun is out, the coffees are being swilled by the hectolitre and street beggars are being rebutted by Bodi with unforgiving red pill honesty – ‘fuck off you little cunt or I’ll punch your teeth out’ as he raises his hand to smite them. They scurry from him in fear, whimpering.

I’ve had two students from Scotland join us for the weekend and an innocuous event they had in set last night lead me to a realization similar to my ‘where did all the DHVs go’ blog moment from late last year.

What the fuck happened to game? Actually working a set? It used to be a discipline played out by rules and principles. Hopeful PUAs strove for near perfection in set. Guys in flashing top hats, as moronic as they seemed at the time, were often just experimenting with reality and learning what they could get away with. When you got to know them, they were at least cogniscant of game principals.

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If you’re going for that blonde, I’ll wing you for the brunette maaaaaate!

I remember a couple of times in London, in places like Jewel Bar and that awful nightclub across the road, next to ‘Ripley’s Believe It Or Not’, I can’t remember what it was called, other pickup guys who I didn’t even know, would see me in set and just come and join me. They’d actually wing me, DHV me, distract obstacles for me. Then you’d sometimes see them half an hour later and they’d come and talk to you, ‘how did your set work out mate?’

They displayed a grasp of game that I don’t think exists today. I just don’t see it. Basic principles, rules, technique, team-work, reason, systems and laws. They all existed for a reason. The reason is that they worked.

I am currently writing four game books. One is about the principles of game; one is just another game biography. It’s as I write this biography part that so much comes back to me. I am currently (in the book) at the end of my first year in game, halfway through volume 1. I remember my first year in game was a mix of meeting guys and finding good wings, choosing to lose my old friends and shedding my old skin. Not much game success was had in that first year. The girls were so-so and the sets were often hit and miss. More luck than game.

They key is this – I remember on Sundays we’d all meet up at grotty pubs near tube stations and we would go over the weekend’s sets and talk about the things that went wrong and we’d work out what we could try to do in set in future to correct the failings.

That’s, 10 years ago today, exactly what I was doing on Sundays. We were THAT committed. We’d go out four nights a week and Sunday was for team meetings.

Our rules and signals weren’t invented to be pompous and grandiose. We did it because we needed them. We failed without them. We tried them and they worked. Through trial and error we pulled ourselves out of chaos and into successes a full five years before some of the modern pickup superstars had even heard of game.

We didn’t find out who the player’s target was in set because it was some kind of noble brotherhood respect thing. No we did it because we had to, otherwise the set was chaos. It worked because you cannot run a set properly as a team without knowing and following some simple basics.

Certain rules are absolutely paramount and from my position, unforgiveable to break, since they just waste everyone’s time. Pre RSG we worked this out through trial and error, the hard way. By the time RSG came into being, the wing rules were so well established they were like the ten commandments. We obeyed them slavishly, and over time, the new guys who joined RSG were taught them. These new guys didn’t go through the previous five years initiation period so didn’t ever experience life without them. We just passed them on as religion. No one ever questioned them because if they broke them, they would have not been accepted into the crew. The price of admission was submission to the code.

You take away the train tracks while the train is going at full speed and what happens?

Burto and Lee became two core RSG members. They were taught by me. I remember them coming on their boot-camp. I remember contacting them a week after the boot, as a friend, and inviting them out for drinks. I liked them. I took them out in Angel. They lapped up the free tuition and I lapped up their charisma and enthusiasm.

At one point we gate-crashed a fancy party for a company that rented out high performance sports cars. When inside, we worked a set as a team and it was awful, a train off the tracks moment. I was ecstatic because it was a great learning experience for these two.

The girls left us and Lee and Burto looked at me blank faced. ‘That didn’t go well’, they said.

‘Of course it didn’t, but you know why though, don’t you?’

They didn’t. So I explained.

Burto opened the set. Within a few minutes he was telling a good DHV story about being a croupier and the whole group was listening. The girls liked it. So far so good, BUT then Lee started talking to one of the girls, the  blonde girl. He took her away from Burto’s story and just started escalating her physically. Now… How did Lee know that she wasn’t Burto’s target? Well the answer is, he didn’t.

And the truth is, she was Burto’s target. And now with his target gone, Burto simply shrigged his shoulders and settled for second best. The less attractive brunette. She paid him good attention after his croupier story, so he dutifully negged her gently. But the problem is, she wasn’t the hot girl of the group. Lee had taken the hot one out of the conversation. So Burto’s neg, designed to be used on the hot target who is not used to being talked to like a normal person, well his neg lands badly on the obstacle.

He’s basically just raised his value and then been rude to the obstacle as a reward for her appreciation. Lee at the same time stole Burto’s target and illegally reversed the set – making himself the player and Burto the wing. Burto didn’t pick up on this, and continued as he’d begun, as the Player. Both men were Player, doing whatever they wanted and no one was Wing.

Other stuff happened, but all you need to know is that it was just a car crash. The girls ejected.

It’s a fucking core principal of game, when in a group, a good player who knows what he is doing may well direct attention at the obstacles and ignore the target, leaving her to be slightly on the outskirts of the conversation but exposed to his value spikes. The wing’s job is to understand this and go with it. His job is not to distract the target so she doesn’t see or hear the player’s DHVs.

It’s a principal of game. It’s a principal of team work.

  • He who opens the set, owns the set. If you’re a wing, keep your fucking hands in your pockets and do as you’re damn well told by your player.
  • When you’re the wing, your first concern is not how pretty the girls are, it’s to find out who the player’s target is.

We didn’t establish those rules to be grandiose or humiliating. We established them because they were absolutely crucial to our success and we found it out the hard way.

A top quality girl usually has options. You often need to lay some ground work to get her keen. This ground work might be an hour of DHV. It’s not as simple as just pawing at her and saying ‘I like your bracelet’. You want to make yourself a prize and coax her into chasing you. This is what working a set is. It’s called ‘game’.

For this reason you just can’t run a set as a free for all. ‘Anything goes’ is the road to chaos. You need rule one (he who opens the set, owns the set) because it dictates the spider diagram that co-ordinates the rest of the interaction. I’m telling you. If you don’t believe me then go find out for yourself, but it’s your own time you’re wasting.

I told all this to Bodi last week. He wouldn’t have it, he knew better. ‘You don’t need all that; it just leads to falling out’. I just said ‘OK’. I don’t argue or try to convince people anymore. I’ll give them the facts as I see them; I don’t need to justify myself. It’s up to them what they do with the knowledge I give them.

So to come to the set with the students last night, here’s what happened.

Player stops two girls in the park. Wing, joins him.

Player leads the interaction and every now and again Wing chips in, supporting Player’s vibe and relieving him of the pressure of having to perform 100% all the time.

After ten minutes both girls were well invested so the Player invites them to go for a drink. They decline, as they have to go and meet friends. So the offer of ‘some other time’ is put out there by the Player.

‘Maybe’ the girls say coyly, smiling. Game on.

So the Player, as per pickup 101, stacked the conversation and carried on. He starts, however, to falter, so the Wing picks up more of the set in the final third. He senses the need to close so he goes for it.

The Wing says, ‘guys, listen, let’s be honest, you’ve got it made here, you’ve hit the jackpot, we’re charming and handsome. Now what’s the worst that can happen? You come for a coffee with us, we just talk and laugh. No big deal’.

The girls say ‘we can’t come NOW’. And there’s a pause. The Player is looking at the Wing; the Wing is looking at the Player. No one is saying the words ‘OK, let’s swap numbers and go out tomorrow’.

The girls leave.

So in the post mortem, we all agree that everyone in that set wanted to swap numbers. The player says the following:

‘I was waiting for the Wing to get that red-haired girls number. I felt it was the strongest connection’.

The Wing says: ‘I had no idea about that. I suppose I kind of liked the blonde, but… I thought the Player was going to ask for the red-heads number’.

The Player liked the read head and the Wing (not that it matters) liked the blonde. The girls liked them both. And the upshot is they’ll all never meet each other again.

If the Player had just followed the rules they’d both be on a date today with two cute girls, but because he abandoned the rules, the train came off the tracks.

It’s the Player’s set. He opened it, so he’s the player and he’s responsible for the set. Not the Wing. In this situation the Wing couldn’t be sure who the Player was interested in or what the player wanted to do with the set. The last thing the Wing wants to do is be the one to take the number. It’s likely to hijack the Player’s set.

‘I was alright in the Wing having the set though’, the Player defended himself. But how was the Wing supposed to know this? Telepathy? The Player never told him.

All the Wing knew was this:

‘The Player is in set and I’m here to support him, I don’t know any more than that until he tells me. Until he tells me, I just sit tight and follow his lead’.

The Player has to manage the number close because only he knows what he wants to happen. I remember once a guy called Blue purposely letting a set leave the bar because he knew which bar they were going to and he knew he’d see them later. It was a ‘take away’. So he let the set go. We were all puzzled in the moment but it was his set so we went with it. When the set left, he explained and we all nodded in agreement. It was classy game by Blue. The take away was crucial, the girl was hot and the hour between leaving and seeing him again, she’d had time to dwell on his absence. She didn’t know he knew where she was going to be. So when he turned up, she was delighted and threw herself at him. It was a ballsy move and it worked.

The worst thing that could have happened would be for Blue’s wings to ‘help’ him by swapping numbers and thus maintaining the means of communication. He’d put a couple of hours into that set and his decision was that he needed to be ‘the one that got away’. He’d have been furious if some Wing got above his station and ruined his hard work.

It used to happen to us all the time. The rules stopped it happening.

But going back to last night, it gets worse.

‘Yes but, although I really liked the red-head, I thought the connection was a bit stronger with the Wing, so I just thought he should have the set instead. What else could I do’, the Player whined.

And this is the core of the whole problem. This is where we have lost our principles. We’ve all lost our minds. I got angry at this point. I even banged my fist on the table.

‘What else could I do?!’ Are you a fucking seducer of women or not? What the fuck is that comment?

Don’t tell me that you see girl you like, talk to her for ten minutes and because you think she fancies your mate, you give up? What in all fuckwhittery is that about? Who gives a shit who some skirt fancies after 10 minutes of conversation? If any of the former crew had cared who their targets fancied in the first ten minutes of meeting them… well Burto would never have got laid for one thing.

Do you honestly think I ever gave a shit who my target fancied in the first 10 minutes of the set?

It doesn’t matter who she likes initially. You’re a player. You’re in game. Who she likes after ten minutes is irrelevant. Your only concern is HOW YOU’RE GOING TO GET HER TO LIKE YOU OVER THE NEXT HOUR. That’s game. Taking a girl from not even knowing you existed, to seeing what a magical man you are. Being that man.

I’ll tell you what isn’t game. Flipping stones by stopping 30 girls in the street each day and just hoping one of them likes you. Dividing sets up according to some 20 year old’s fleeting whimsy isn’t game. It’s amateur pussy chasing. You’re totally subject to the whims of the skirt. You’re nothing. You’re not a pick up artist; you’re just a chode who is more committed to pussy begging than the usual chode.

Now, if a player wants to relinquish a set, he can do, it’s his prerogative as owner of the set. He just has to let Wing know.

You can’t have two conductors. You can’t have two captains. You have one, he makes the calls.

What game needs is a renaissance. The golden era of hopeful PUAs has long passed and we’re left with the next generation – so called ‘day gamers’ without a clue, who just spam-open girls on the street and hope for the best. No technique, no finesse and no game, just desperate stone flipping zombies and following the girl’s frame. This is why they don’t get hot women. I see them, the ‘Nu-Gamers’ as Bodi calls them. They’re rarely in set with anything over a 7. I see them all around Eastern Europe. Ruining it for everyone else.

We’re all as guilty as anyone for contributing to this decay. For years we have all said things like ‘day game is king’ and ‘get out there, crank some sets, there’s always the next set’. But the difference is that we’ve done our long apprenticeships in the bars and clubs of London. We’ve spent our Sundays obsessing over ‘was that neg too hard in that set with the green skirt girl?’ We know how to work a real set, not a day game set. And we don’t chase average skirt.

Day game has slipped from being an art, a hard won skill set, to being no different from street leafleting and charity mugging. They’re an eye-sore even more so than those guys ten years ago with the flashing top hats, because the top hats at least got the principals.

14 comments

  1. Dude, I really agree with you on this post. I’ve worked my ass out on nightgame for years, and internalized some rules and principles. On daygame, most of these principles still applied. Lot of guys who start straight with daygame lack a lot of calibration and ability to coordinate with a wing.

  2. Oh Jambone, you sad fool. Nightgamers like me hit the clubs 3x a week and reap big reward of pussy time (with models) and you sit rambling on with this stuffs. What even is it? We come here for NEGS, OPENERS and laying stories. You say gamers game isn’t tight. many gamers have super tight game. My wing is a top euro daygamer and banging hotties and can also slay in clubs.
    SO SAD.

  3. Good post, but i’m with Bodi, it all seems unnecessarily complex, and complex rules just end up being excuses as to why sets didn’t work out rather than the real reasons such as ‘you’re to skinny, you’re too fat, you hate your life and reak of desperation and seem like a boring fun free zone’.

  4. I think the modern PUA industry has thrown out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to Game. IMO despite it being a little crude in parts and not totally understanding everything in seduction, some of the best ideas in Game were found in Mystery Method. For some reason most PUAs I’ve met sneer at it now, I suspect never actually having read the book. Daygame abandoned the DHV for some reason as you pointed out (I think they thought it was ‘showing off’ and instead relied on teasing [from negging] and a bit of challenging behaviour (usually on arguing moot points). The train has come off the tracks.

    On a wider point, the daygame community has made a great play of being alpha/direct/straight to the point by stating their intentions right off the bat which is essentially the opposite of what mystery method taught. To their credit some of the daygame coaches do say you can dial back the initial compliment / stop in the street (which is a huge ‘pull’) by teasing. However, I think this point is usually lost in practise. I only started working out how to do this well in a daygame context myself recently and my results have rocketed. I have begun to get results even being in London, including with hot English girls (I know its not Moscow but these are pretty girls in their early 20s) & with girls in groups going out to bars in the evening etc. Its tricky but you can get great results if you use some art. I put some comments that I was doing well in London as an Indian dude recently on your old mate Ks blog and got shot down by loads of haters [which has resulted in a self imposed exile from commenting that blog] 🙂

    1. Great comment. Can you give us any examples of how you dial down after the initial display of interest. Is it something verbal or structural that you can explain here or is it more something more physical you do, for example with indifferent body language, facial expressions etc.

      As good as it is, I can’t read potato head’s blog. He has now crossed the line into full egomaniac. My friend Nick is gone and all that is left is the rampant ego that has taken his place. He will be building a statue of himself in his garden soon. I have enough of him talking about how great he is when I meet him in person, or over What’s App. I think I have PTSD. I am fully triggered, the last thing I need is to read his blog.

      1. I dont think Krauser is going egomaniac, his last blog posts were good and useful. As long as a PUA get noticeable results (hopefully not fabricated) I’m of the opinion it’s ok to boast. Still more if you are over 40 (like me) and still in the game: this is a ballsy choice and this sole reason gives you the right to think you can make a statue of yourself (lol). On the other hand, think about a guy like Torero, who is in his prime and a master player but instead of banging models goes around on a pink van picking up what looks like an old drunk bar hoe, gets a threesome out of it and then boasts about it for the whole summer…. this is the omega level of pick-up and I think all the community should stop and meditate where game is going, nowadays. So as long as a guy like Krauser is still out there working and delivering good stuff, we all should be happy about it.

        1. Don’t worry, I was just ripping on Krauser because I knew he’d see it. I wasn’t slandering him.

          He is the real deal, I can attest to that. And what is even more impressive is that he consistently gets hot young girls despite looking like a gnome and dressing like a clown.

      1. Ok so this is quite a good site which shows various male facial expressions …

        http://www.girlschase.com/content/7-facial-expressions-drive-women-wild

        I was referring above to what this site calls 2) ‘Value giving smile’ and 4) ‘come on I know you want me’ [james deans pic captures it best IMO].. I also realised I do a lot of the 7) ‘Intense look’

        I’ve realised you can also mix up these expressions into new composite expressions giving you many permutations of look which can signify different things.

        From practise I’ve observed that its better to ‘feel’ the expression you are creating it otherwise as so many minor muscles are involved in the process [I think its common knowledge for instance that the way to detect an insincere smile is to look for the absence of small wrinkles/crows feet around the eye .. a genuine smile always has these]. For example I often do 4) while actually being a mischievous/cheeky guy in that moment.

        Hope that helps.

        Ps the wind has slightly gone out of my sails after hitting Shoreditch on Saturday and encountering lots of English Boyfriend objections, with the bitter cherry on the top being a really hot English girl waiting for a friend at the station being very amenable to my approach before her shrew of a friend turned up and decided to drag her away with a “come on we have to go” 🙁

  5. Yes sure Jimmy, will try and explain as best I can. I’ve become really focused on body language and facial expression, I am going through a process of trying to figure out the nuances of male facial expression which are analogous to say the female flutter of the eyelashes/pouting/exposing the neck which boost attraction in us. This is where I think there is magic and these behaviours are working on a more primal level predating language. A bit tricky to express but bear with me (I got flak from the haters on Ks blog for being long winded but writing stuff down helps me get things together in my own mind).

    To begin with on the street, I deliberately tone everything right down to avoid the impression that I have ‘chased’ her down the street. So even thought I might need to speed up to catch her, or walk fast if to get to a standing set, I will slow down to a moderate pace / amble (if possible) as I come up to reach her. Now she thinks I’ve only made the effort to take a few steps in her direction and was probably not so far away from her. Running toward a girl is to me a massive DLV [imo doing the full Yad stop is a huge DLV unless you are a young dude i.e. below 18 and talking to girls the same age where you can get away with being over excitable]. Most daygamers I think intuitively get running after a girl is low value but convince themselves they just have to do it and then probably have AA induced meltdowns when they feel like space cadets doing it. In practise you hardly ever need to make it obvious that you’ve chased her down the street. Basically I try and make it look as incidental as humanly possible.

    My body language becomes quite languid as I actually open the girl and I have developed a certain facial expression which is best described as a squint/smirk which basically says I’m just here to have a bit of fun and I’m not too bothered what happens one way or another. I’ve noticed when observing PUA infields or at hotspots like Covent Garden than PUAs often stand to attention as they have been instructed to “act alpha”. I assume a real alpha guy wouldn’t actually look like he is just about to enter the field of battle approaching a 20 year old girl anyway  If the girl looks a bit unsure of me I modulate my facial expression to one with a warm smile just momentarily and then back again to the smirk (I might have to do this a couple of times to create reassurance). This is all non verbal and that’s where I can feel the sparkle happen, that’s where the game is set up to actually start playing. I can tell in that fraction of a second if she is willing to play (usually they are even if they have a serious BF or even engaged / married as I’ve realised women usually enjoy the experience if they have time to do so).

    When I open I speak in slow and simple sentences at least at the beginning. I don’t make 3 observations about her as many daygame coaches teach as it feels contrived and shows you need to offer lots of conversational bait as you have fear of her not biting. I offer one observation which is usually also a neg [she knows Im playing and will feign offense but its mutually acknowledged fun). From her response I will riff into the main part of the conversation or if necessary I will stack another observation or just ask an interesting question in order to jump into a proper conversation.

    One other point, I use my hands in certain ways, for instance I point rather dismissively with a little wave with a finger raised, especially when referencing her. It’s something you would do to a little nephew when making fun of her, it’s something you would never do to someone who is older or more important. The thing about all of these things are that they are almost imperceptible but I believe a girls subconscious is picking up on all of it and essentially making a decision about value on this basis.

    It’s still a work in progress but I’m getting a lot of little things together in my arsenal. I don’t think the current PUA cognesetti have worked everything out by a longshot, they have only worked some of it out and is reminiscent of how scientists worked out how the periodic table comes together, bits and pieces here and there but the whole jigsaw hasn’t been seen yet. I’m interested in cracking more of it for my own interest as much as for actually getting with hot girls. My results are showing the return on this investment, there is lots of success with failure and disappointment also thrown in. For instance, on Saturday night I approached a three set out in the West End coming out of a bar and going to another, they were all (early professional) English girls in their early 20s dolled up to the max (English 6, 7 with an 7.5 and dare I say it 8). Most daygamers would not go near such as set as all the variables are unfavourable in their mind and they think it’s impossible. I approached one of them (8) [I know MM teaches engaging the obstacle but I could see they would be on the move soon and my one was slightly apart] and worked the set (I had a sort of wing for once, but he is a newbie and wasn’t ready to come in with me, at least I think thats what happened as he just vanished when I went into approach LoL), I had little time but through strong body language, & making her work she essentially went through a process of building comfort with me and offered her no. to me. What was especially fascinating on a tangential point is that the other two girls disappeared after a few minutes as I have seen women are extremely clever at sub communicating through body language what they want and she essentially told them under the radar that she wanted to talk to me (one of them disappeared into a nearby place and the other went to talk to cab driver and actually held him up while all this was going on). Therefore I think if you show high value and the girl engages with you she will actually let it be known that she likes you and her friends will facilitate the process (fascinated to understand how this happened but I suspect it involves complex and nuances micro expressions being read by the friends who don’t have to even check with each other whats happening they just knew). This also happened with another girl whose friend came up while I number closed her and the friend actually helped point out when my call went through to my targets phone lol

    Im no means a master with this stuff but I’m excited in working it out and seeing how this works in the field. Sometimes you can just pull off miracles you wouldn’t have thought possible and those moments are what makes me think it was worth the 2 years work Ive put into this!

    1. Fuck me this is absolute gold mate! You should pull your thoughts together and make it public somehow. It’s clearly field tested theory too. You’re putting the behaviour out there and simply showing the results so I don’t know how anyone can complain. All you’re doing is describing what you see.

      I know you’re right because I see a lot of myself in this but I have never deconstructed it or understood it even close to as well as you seem to be doing.

      I know with students I tell them to go out sometimes and try sets with different voice tones and exaggerated facial expressions. Pretend they are an actor in a movie, play different parts and just feel out the responses from various poses and mannerisms. It’s my clumsy way of trying to get them to learn this but I can’t verbalise it.

      1. Thanks. Well I have been observing old movie actors for instance looking at facial expressions and then basically practising them infield (I should practise more in a mirror to be honest but its a little tedious). I call that squint/smirk the Clint Eastwood look as it reminds me of what he used to do in saloons in 60s spaghetti westerns.

        https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=clint+eastwood&biw=1536&bih=739&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&sqi=2&ved=0ahUKEwjpvr7XnsbOAhWJAcAKHd58BdwQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=9zW-RzMdok_ZIM%3A

        hope this link shows up .. if not I will email pic.

        Well, in those threads I was discussing many things, what seemed to get the haters especially annoyed was when I put them straight about being Indian not being a barrier to success with ‘white’ girls LoL Not that I give a toss about impressing them, but just to let other Indian dudes reading its really not the issue they think it is. In fact as I pointed out its actually a slight advantage with certain races.

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