If you’re not keeping statistics, you’re doing something wrong.
One of the most potent weapons in an intermediate’s arsenal is his statistics, vis-a-vis, a rough estimate of his ability, and without them he’s largely flailing. You need them to see where your bottlenecks are, from open to lay, and then where to direct your learning efforts. This post is going to explain what I record, how, and what I’ll be changing next year for my record keeping. At the end of 2017 I’ll release my 2016-17 stats (I started in October 2016).
The first question is “what”. At the most simple level, you could count your approaches and lays. The approach to lay ratio is the magic number for intermediates, but that’s only the start of the rabbithole. From there you can record number closes, social media closes, how many respond to the initial feeler, i-dates, dates, kisses (on the dates), and bouncebacks. Currently I record:
- Number closes
- Responses
- Dates
- Lays
Although in the past I have also recorded everything but bouncebacks, and in a somewhat vainglorious fashion: SDLs.
As you add in more levels to the statistics, you are able to see with greater ability where your bottlenecks are. You could even include a section purely for the street, measuring how many girls stopped, how many hooked, what your stack was etc; I could see that being particularly useful for beginners or for an intermediate who had a high approach to number close ratio.
As you’re gathering your data, you’ll also want to be measuring the ratios from step to step. Seeing how many approaches for a number, how many numbers for a date, etc. I use spreadsheets to keep my data (more on this later), and the ratios I track are:
- Approaches:Closes i.e. how many approaches for one number
- Responses/Closes (%) i.e. what proportion of girls respond to the feeler
- Dates/Responses (%) i.e. what proportion of responses will turn into dates
- Lays/Dates (%) i.e. what proportion of dates will turn into lays
- I use percentages for most of these because I’m aiming for the figures below, rather than thinking to myself if I approach X girls today I will get 0.0… lays.
This will allow you to see where your bottlenecks are. Some useful statistics to know are that you want Responses/Closes = ~50% and that at most you will be able to achieve Lays/Dates = ~50%. I got those figures from Tom Torero’s content and I imagine they’re meant to be taken as signals: if you are surpassing these numbers you should try faster escalation or aim for higher quality.
The last point is that I split the approaches into blocks and recommend you have a different document for each 1000 sets. I keep my long term ratios, but for my first 1000 sets I also measured everything per 200 sets, and for 1001-2000 I’m recording 1001-1350, 1351-1700 and 1701-2000. By splitting up your 1000 sets into smaller blocks, you can see how your ratios have progressed over time.
Now the question is “how”. I record everything on the street on a notes app on my phone, and then onto spreadsheets which I also have loaded onto my phone. I update them immediately after my Daygame sessions and dates so it’s perfect for the train ride back home. I’ve purposefully made it as convenient as possible to record my stats. They allow for instant updating of your ratios and I’ve also added some conditional formatting so that the numbers are red, amber, and yellow, based on their current values.
If such meticulous record keeping is not for you, then you can go as simple as a pen and piece of paper, just recording your approaches and lays. Remember, if you’re not keeping stats, you’re never going to be as good as you could be. Even for a person who thinks that “they’re just not that kind of person”, you can still do addition and division. If not, you’ve got bigger problems than getting better at Daygame and your SMV may benefit greater via primary school Mathematics.
For 2018 I’ll be adding in bouncebacks to my stats, re-adding kisses, and removing responses. The main concentration being on becoming an incredibly efficient dater. I want to see: what proportion of girls were timewasters; what proportion kissed but didn’t bounceback indicating over-escalation on the date (assuming I didn’t have another date); and lastly, how many bounced back but I didn’t fuck showing my success at breaking LMR. By April 2018, I expect to have a decent dataset and can direct my learning.
I’ll be removing responses simply because I don’t like opening the spreadsheet each and every time I get a response to my feelers; sometimes I forget to update it making this figure the least reliable, whereas the other numbers are 99% reliable and of course, the lays are 100% reliable.
Yours unfaithfully,
Thomas Crown
Appendix.
1.
I only count the approach if she at least gives me a shot to show my value. I say to myself, if it was DiCaprio stopping her would he have got her number. If I think “yes”, then I count it. That means abrupt blowouts don’t count.
2.
I count dates as “girls who come on dates”. So if I had two first dates, that would be entered as two, but if I had two dates with one girl, that would stay as one.
Thomas Crown PUA 
Good post!
I like the idea of breaking the stats down into smaller buckets (and would apply that I had enough volume to break down;) if you do all the approaches in one place/city. I would rather divide by city/environment, e.g. when on EuroJaunts etc. as this has probably a huge impact on the stats and you don’t have overlays of possible root causes like different vibe, other wings etc.
Re. app. 1.: I would advocate to still count the direct blowouts as daygame starts with the reading of the targets’ accessibility in the first place. And if you try to open a girl that runs to still get the bus in departure, that is brave but lacks basic calibration/evaluation, and that’s a huge part of DG.
LikeLike
>> I only count the approach if she at least gives me a shot to show my value. I say to myself, if it was DiCaprio stopping her would he have got her number. If I think “yes”, then I count it. That means abrupt blowouts don’t count.
This ^ is a very interesting wrinkle in how we keep stats.
I met David Burn of LongBurnTheFire in NYC, and he has a similar tweak. I think he has a personal differentiation between “approach” and “set.” That’s interesting. And it really changes the overall numbers.
I am with J- Philander above… I count every approach. To me the words “set” and “approach” are the same thing.
That means my numbers are “conservative” (I count every blowout against my ratios).
With that said, my stats suck (vs what other guys claim)… and perhaps *some* of that is the approach vs set thing??
As for me, I increasingly don’t care about the ratios…
— I count APPROACHES (as VOLUME is THE THING, in my opinion)
— I count LEADS
— I count LAYS
When I broke down my Tokyo numbers last year, I reported on many other items… like how often she had “no english at all.” Or how often a girl would mention either of “BF or husband” (= only 8 times in nearly 400 girls, I don’t know why… I never hear “BF” in Tokyo). I posted those stats on my blog.
When I’m recording more detail, I stop every 3rd approach and enter some very brief notes:
— Asian girl, great smile, stopped, but didn’t hook
— Icey cold blowout… brrrrrrr!
— Hysterical young girl, loved it, blushed, Line close
^ Like that. Very fun to read the notes later.
Back at home… I only record leads these days (so I can remember them, and work them).
When I get to Tokyo this year, I’ll record every set again, so I can do stats for the trip when I get home.
I care less about ratios these days, unless my game is serving me up nothing. Then I 2nd guess the numbers and what it means.
Mostly… I know if I approach, and have fun, and take leads, I’ll get laid. Outside of trips, those are the stats that matter to me.
I’m going to do a different kind of post on stats… I’ll ping this one when I do that write-up.
Good post, man.
Viva daygame.
LikeLike
We should not forget what purpose the stats really serve:
NOT to compare us with other players because everyone has his own quality standard, sarging grounds with resp. supply, counting system (blow outs or not); only as a general reality check, e. g. knowing that even the masters (who I presume get BOs seldomly) at their best get close to a 20-to-1 approach-to-lay ratio.
So the real purpose IMO is to detect hidden weaknesses and patterns: “you can only improve what you can measure”. It’s so important to record each set and scrutinize it, ideally also by a wing or coach. You will identify your big weaknesses quickly (in my case: voice) then the hard part starts, the actual changing it.
But once you’re more advanced, I believe the stats are the path to explore your blind spots. For that, they MUST be detailed, include all stages, also the blow outs. I mean, getting a blow out is a sign your frame is not strong and dominant enough or you do bad filtering.
Example: last Fri late afternoon, here on Oxford St, I opened a girl on the escalator down to the tube and it was a blow out because she was in a rush AND my approach was not superstrong. But had I really good, dominant, calm game, I’m sure I could have make her stop after reaching the end of the escalator (as she didn’t walk on the esc. itself, her way of blowing me out was a quick BF objection).
You want to compare stats over time to see if you make progress but also the ratios between each phase. E.g. when you are efficient to convert sets into non-flaky numbers but have a very low date-to-lay ratio, you might want to do a bit of social circle game or daygame 5s and 6s to practice seduction phase. Notch-count hyena will be purring, too.
IMHO, there is only one argument against very detailed stats: when you spend too much time tweaking your excel and making the graphs neat and fancy. This is avoidance, it’s sublimated AA, it’s like the controller in the cosy HQs vs. the salesman on site in the cold. I am guilty of that sometimes.
Then it is for sure wise to close the laptop, fuck the stats and even get your fair share of blow-outs.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Excellent comment and what you said about blind spots is very true.
Do you not have conditional formatting in your spreadsheets too? 😉
LikeLike
Eeeee-xactly!! :)) LOLLOTF!
And in a certain way, after conditional formatting comes… – running a blog. Qualitative or non-number based stats, so to speak.
The ultimate level then: PPTX with embedded and linked, conditionally formatted XLSX charts on the blog instead of infields…
love.daygam.me because it’s a nerdy sport after all (with benefits;)
LikeLike
Thanks. It’s interesting that the “what counts” point comes up again. I met Johan in person this weekend and he mentioned it too. On one hand my approach misses the data of how good your stop is or how good your target selection is. It also, as you said conversely, improves the ratios. On the other hand, there’s the psychological benefit of seeing good ratios/numbers so that you think that you’re the bee’s knees.
I’m thinking that for next year, and I’ve heard other guys do this too, is to count blowouts as half a set.
LikeLike
And as you write, Nash, of course it’s sooo funny to go through your notes, your street diary lateron and often detailed memories of each set pop up. Like the blank faces staring at me this older couple behind that YHT Swedish blondie I opened on Oxford St. – I had completely overlooked her parents, had only eyes for the nice little ass in white jeans (self-eject sets count +1 >work on your perception and filtering OR practice more being the bold bad-ass)…
LikeLike
>> But had I really good, dominant, calm game, I’m sure I could have…
This… I’m not sure about.
This isn’t a comment about you, or your skill, at all. It’s about the idea that “every girl can be cracked.” That it’s just about improvement on our part, and then… they all crack open. I think most of know that is not true.
The ratios will always be low. Guys will claim “1 in 20” and I mostly call BS on all that. For 90% of guys will real effort, I assume it’s 1 in 50 (which would be amazing) and more like 1 in 100.
So… if you fuck 1 girl in 50 (which would be hysterically good), that means 98% of the time, what you didn’t work. For me, that’s the trend to understand.
The ratios will always be low. That is normal. There is skill, for sure, and a lot we can do about it, but that will always be true… thus, I’m about what is in the net, not about what slipped through.
There are 1 MM reasons why a girl might reject us. Too many reasons to ever pin it down. We can learn what doesn’t work, through massive iteration, somewhat, but knowing WHY… impossible, in most cases. Beyond beginner… we’ll never know.
Yes, “The girl is our mirror” (said someone). We can learn from feedback.
I am spending less time analyzing the SETS, and more time analyzing THE DAY itself. Particularly what I can do to juice my vibe on days I’m going out… and what habits I have that make my “flow” more chunky, and how to avoid doing those things on days I game.
Maybe the number one thing that improve my results… is already having results. Like being so busy, I don’t even notice when girls don’t respond. Lots of guys talk about this. But knowing this doesn’t help me when I am trying to build critical mass. It’s true… in retrospect. But on the street… it’s just part of “the art” of it all.
I work in a science-y field, where we are proud of our data… but I’m more/more convinced, it goes like this:
No science at all… < some science < a through plan with data/tracking science kind of way.
Ehhh… all my pov.
LikeLike
Funny that you bring this up, Nash.
I posed exactly that question to the pros on stage on Sat 16 Dec. Given you have the DG level of a Krauser or Richard, made sure you’re in great shape and perfect vibe and state, maybe allow yourself to also do 6s and 5s for the sake of DG advancement and then carefully filter and open *only* girls who sent you strong IOIs.
I still want to believe that under these circumstances the A2L ratio actually can—must—go down to 10 or even lower. Sure, you have some false positives/flirty attention whores, some will lose their courage along the way and you’ll deal with LMR. But that may be 30, 40 or even 50% but for the rest?
If not, maybe sonething is still being overlooked in Game technique. Or is the missing link looks or obvious status which some girls need on top?
Why would she then send an IOI, if not a false positive which we excluded.
Maybe the adolescent grandiosity delusion is at work here, but I just don’t get it…
LikeLike
Great blog man, only spotted it yesterday. You are doing amazingly well, keep it up 💪
LikeLike