Levels of Game (And A Football Analogy)

There are tons of ways to describe the levels of Game. I’ve recently been reading Steve Jabba’s book Primal Seduction (and will be posting a review of it soon once I finish my second read-through) and he sees the levels as: the what do I say and do level; the frame-imposition level; the identity based level. In Daygame Infinite Krauser says that moving from intermediate to advanced means going from being technique focused to vibe focused, because all the good behaviours are part of your muscle memory anyway. As part of a post a long time ago called What Makes Someone an Advanced Daygamer? (link here) I asked people that question and they came up with a long list of suggestions. Though I do still stand with my suggestion at the end of the post in that if you have to ask the question, you’re not there yet!

In today’s post I want to give a quick analogy I use to spot whether a guy is still an intermediate or is pushing up into upper intermediate and advanced levels (or level two or three or however you’d like to call it).

I’m writing this post because I’ve had two students recently who had a similar problem: they weren’t pushing their advantage. They could approach confidently and their verbals were all well and good. They had the trappings of a good Daygamer such as a good stop, opener, stacks and spikes, and even good style and health (read: they had improved their looks), but they still seemed to be playing “not to lose” rather than to win. They were still stuck in the old mentality of “let’s present myself to the girl and hope she picks me.”

Imagine the scenario: the girl is walking down the street and is open to adventure when suddenly a cool guy comes to talk to her; maybe she even IOI’d him before he did so. She thinks to herself “here’s a guy who’s going to give me what I want.” He gets started well and then… the energy fizzles out. He stands there and talks to her at an arm’s length and after five to ten minutes of good but not stellar interaction he asks for her number. She leaves thinking “here’s just another guy who wants to go on two or three dates so I feel obliged to sleep with him.” It’s not what she wanted. Using Krauser’s jargon from Infinite she wanted “excitement mode” and got “normal mode.” She wanted the alpha who would give her tingles and move things fast and what she saw was just a higher beta. Note that “moving things fast” does not simply mean that you’re going to go for the first date, or even same day, lay; it’s a sense she gets from your personality that you have greater momentum than other guys.

In reality the guy should have been working the girl much more. Stepping in and stepping out. Building from lighter to more pronounced touches (escalating kino) and pairing that with deep eye contact. In fact, here’s another definition of the levels of Game: the advanced guy knows both logically and, more importantly, emotionally, that what you say doesn’t matter much and it’s what you do that counts. And it goes further, and this is a point I definitely agree on with Jabba, in that what you do is less important than who you are: your consciously chosen behaviours are way less important than your micro-behaviours, little eye flickers and the like, and those stem from your identity. A masculine man with healthy sexual appetite will truly go for it with the girl so it’s worth asking yourself “do you want to fuck her or do you just want to practice your Daygame?” (or some other specific technical aspect).

The way I try and describe to students how this manifests in the world is through a football analogy:

Level One / Beginner: these guys are like a defensive football team. They line up with five defenders and four midfielders in two banks to defend the goal, with a lone striker a bit further up the pitch. If the goalkeeper gets the ball he hoofs it upfield and hopes that the striker will get lucky and somehow be able to score. Similarly, the beginner Daygamer has so much AA he simply goes in, flails around for a bit, and hopes that the girl likes him in spite of his nerves.

Level Two / Intermediate: these guys are like counter-attacking football teams. It seems like a good idea because it works now and then but there’s another level still to reach (and they know it) and they’re still waiting for the opposing team to make a mistake which they can capitalise on. More importantly, they’re still waiting for the girl to pick them rather than going for it themselves.

Level Three / Advanced: these guys are true attacking football teams who make their own opportunities, like Man City and Liverpool do right now (and I hope Chelsea do in future!).

Making this step up is a hard one because it feels like risking everything you’ve worked hard for. But the way I think about it is this: let’s say I need a girl to be 8/10 interested in me for her to want to have sex with me. That means I can have as many 7/10 interests in the world and it will never translate to sex. I’d much rather have one girl be 8, 9 or 10/10 interested in me and many girls 2/10 interested in me than the alternative. This is also way more efficient because I don’t waste a fraction as much time on dates to nowhere and the girls who do come out are more interested in me from the off and will be much more compliant (because I triggered that “excitement mode”).

How to make that step up then? Firstly, I think you need to go through the earlier stages first as they are a rite of passage. But once you’re at that stage, baby step things, just like you did with AA: first ask for directions, then ask for the nearest “good coffee shop” and have a short social interaction, then transition to a compliment, then try hit and run compliments, then build out the model, etc.

All you need to do to get started is during your set take a single, tiny step towards her once you reach hook point. Then, while talking, just once, let the tips of your fingers touch her arm during the conversation. Try that in every set for a week. In week two, take two steps and try two touches. In week three, try it three times. Read her reactions as you do this: if she steps back then simply let her stand where she chooses; similarly if you’re too heavy handed with your touches then make them lighter for future sets. This is exceedingly hard for neurodivergent guys to do because they can’t read and react to a girl’s negative signals and so for those guys I recommend taking the absolute babiest of baby steps.

If you can do that then you will see the difference between playing to win and playing not to lose, and it will probably take less than three weeks to realise this anyway! That’s the beginning of emotionally knowing what it means to “go for it,” and over time you’ll build the right identity when you see the reactions.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown

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