Warsaw Revisited (Daygame City Review)

I recently got back from a ten day trip to Warsaw. It’s been three years since I reviewed the city and I want to revisit what I wrote and give some updates. Here’s the link plus other Daygamer’s reviews:

• My 2019 review
• Kaiser’s review
• Mikey Forrester’s review
• Wolfe’s review (Jan 2022)
• Wolfe’s review (May 2022)

I also have my recent post on whether I think Warsaw is burned (link here).

Quality

I usually start these things by giving my stats but thought it would be best to start with quality because there’s an elephant in the room: the war in Ukraine. As well as driving up accommodation prices – the AirBNB I stayed in in 2019 would have been 60% more expensive if I stayed there this time – there are a tonne of Ukrainians about town.

That has led to a mixed result. A local Daygamer noted that since the inflow began there has been somewhere between a half to full point increase in the average quality. On the other hand, another local Daygamer commented that Warsaw didn’t feel like it used to; that Ukrainian families crowded the streets and that overall they made it a worse place to Daygame.

How did it affect me? Not much to be honest. I think I opened two or three Ukrainians while I was there because they’re not usually my type. I don’t like the lip filler, princess-y, too cool for school look that a lot of them have and overall I found no issue with them or their families crowding the streets.

Long story short: my personal opinion on the quality hasn’t changed. Warsaw was and is seven heaven, with a fair few eights and lots and lots of sixes. Nationality wise, as well as the Poles and Ukrainians, you’re still likely to find a few Belarusians, of which I opened way more than the Ukrainians. Belarusians seem more individual and quirky compared to Ukrainians who often have this kind of “mass-produced hotness” to them, in my opinion. It’s possible that there might be more Belarusians, though: girls who would want to escape Putin’s sphere of influence might flee from Belarus to Poland, but that’s only my theory and there are other surrounding nations too. The fashion in Warsaw is more varied than in other cities, something I like and I pointed out in my previous review, and there’s a mixture of r and K girls. Lastly, the local guys are pretty lame and kind-of short.

Stats

Apps: 39

#/SM: 15

Dates: 5

Lays: 2

I had great stats on my trip; cannot complain in the slightest.

I don’t think I had any harsh blowouts – where the girl doesn’t stop walking – though there were a few cases where the first words out of her mouth were “no English.” In any case, when I heard that, I would slow my speech down to a snail’s pace and in some cases it made her feel comfortable enough to talk. In fact, one of the lays came from one of these sets.

In terms of IOIs, I received quite a few, and on talking to some of the girls later on about this they said it was because I was smiling and everyone in Warsaw is usually so grumpy!* (Well, it helps to be 6’8” and to have long ginger hair too!) One thing that helped in getting IOIs in Warsaw was that on my favourite Daygame street – Marszałkowska – you can simply walk straight down the middle and everyone will see you, thus giving you the best chance to get an IOI from a passing girl.

* A note on this: I find Daygame a pleasurable and relaxing experience and so that smile is genuine. That’s in contrast to a lot of guys I see walking around, their eyes intensely fixed on the pavement 10 metres ahead of them, stuck squarely inside their heads. Typically their walking is stiff, almost tortured. I get the impression they’re looking forward to the end of their session because “at least then it’ll be over.” If that describes you then try this: walk slower, look up and around, lift your head up, stop and let the sun beam onto your face where you can. Appreciate the nice things around you. The mind leads the body but it can work the other way. If you’re happy you’ll smile but if you smile you’ll force yourself to feel happy. Try it.

When it came to taking Instagrams versus numbers I always pushed for her number, even if she “didn’t use it much.” My mindset on these things is that I don’t want to be messaging girls where the tipping point of their interest lies in what app to open. I want her to like me enough that she’s willing to use an app she doesn’t often use (if that’s the case).

Out of the contact details I took, only a few didn’t respond to my first message at all. Then a few more responded once and dropped off. If they were responding to my messages they mainly came out. I also had one date flake because the girl fell ill and didn’t recover before I left town.

Daygame Experience

The biggest difference with the Daygame experience is that previously I was here during term time. This also made a big difference as to the Daygame area. Luckily, there are still a tonne of people living in Warsaw and so volume was never an issue (plus some students had come back early).

Below is the typical Warsaw Daygame route, with the Zlote Terasy mall on the far left. I don’t like Daygaming in Zlote – I’d rather be outside – so that was off the map for me. I don’t think much of Chmielna for Daygame either as I find it too cramped. Then there was rarely good volume on the way up to the university since it wasn’t term time. The spotlight effect for the girl is big on Nowy as well. That meant that the red route was my bread and butter, with some forays to other areas to keep things fresh.

I was there in mid-September so the temperature was pleasant for me: enough to put a spring in your step; not too cold or hot that you hated being outside. It didn’t rain too much, but even when it did people would still be out and about during the rush hours. Add to that the fact that Marszałkowska has a covered section – plus the underpass which connects it to the Palace – and there was always a nice flow of people. Just make sure to take an umbrella with you anyway (for the uncovered sections) rather than have to retreat to Zlote!

It took me a few days to move up the gears in terms of opening. On the days where I actually did a fair few sets – I did 12 sets on the Monday and 10 on the Tuesday: more than half my total – I followed a similar pattern: roam around at lunchtime and do three or four sets; go have food and rest in my apartment for an hour; then load up on caffeine and hit the ground running at 4.30pm. The effect of the caffeine would last for a couple of hours and I’d catch the majority of the rush hour volume. In this time period, don’t stray off the busiest paths. Just get yourself in the mix and accept the fact that you’ll spend two hours walking up and down the same street(s).

If you want to do a lot of sets, I think this is the best way to go about it. Though the funny thing is that the two lays that I got came from opens on the Monday and Tuesday lunchtime sessions rather than later on when I’d supposedly be “warmed up.” So whether or not those larger afternoon/evening sessions were helpful is up in the air. They didn’t lead to anything (though they could have) but they made me feel as if I was applying myself as I should be. Overall, it they could have had an impact on my overall feeling towards the trip which would then have a knock-on effect for my dates.

To be honest, that’s a mindset I want to move away from. I’m out on the streets looking for sex, not sets. The aim isn’t just to amass more volume as that’s for guys who’ve done less than 1,000 sets. In a perfect world you’d only approach those girls who were going to give you their number. Sure, there will be prediction error in there so you’ll naturally have sets that go nowhere, you get a blowout, she has a boyfriend, etc. To pull a number out of my behind: with a pre-approach filter well applied you can get a set of contact details in roughly every two approaches. That would suggest that the remaining approaches were done moreso for personal comfort – to make you believe that you’re putting in some kind of correct amount of work. It’s just cope, I guess. Once you’re past the apprenticeship stage of Daygame you shouldn’t feel that you need “time at the coal face” to earn the next lay. It should come as a function of being out there, in the mix, enjoying a pleasant walk with occasional chat-up attempts.

Anyway… as far as the Daygame experience goes, much like the girls in Warsaw, I’d give it a 7/10. Mr White messaged me halfway through my trip and I described Daygame in Warsaw as “workmanlike.” That’s not to say that it was bad. More that it’s an input-output city where you put in the time and get a dependable result.

Dating Experience

One thing I appreciated in my previous trip to Warsaw, and again when I went to Kiev last year, is the common agenda of the girls in town. Here’s what I wrote in the Kiev review:

I also didn’t get the “agenda” vibe in Warsaw in that [Warsaw is] more similar to London where the assumption is that sex will happen if you get along and you don’t fuck things up, and mostly within a reasonable timeframe.

Whereas in Kiev you could go on a lot of timewaster dates where the girl wouldn’t put out until many, many dates down the line, or even months, and she would know there would never be time for that during your stay, with Warsaw I got the feeling that any date could lead to sex at the most by the third date. Note this is just how it was for me; there will always be particularly chaste girls or special situations such as virgins where it might take a long time to reach sex.

To summarise the rest of the dating experience:

• Four of five girls drank on the date and the only non-drinker had only recently decided to cut down
• PDA: Warsaw is the kind of city where you should escalate towards the kiss and get it but leave it at that; take the kiss as a milestone to confirm where things are headed rather than a tool to heat girls up
• Plausible Deniability: when bouncing back just walk girls straight back to your place; there’s no need to say that you’re going there and she will be able to tell anyway once you get off the main road
• Flake Levels: I was a bit unlucky in that one of my dates (which I think would have been on) was ill – can’t do anything about that – and I had one weak lead flake on the date. But overall Warsaw doesn’t feel like a flakey town as long as your number collecting is good and you aren’t going for the date request the day you met her.

Lastly there’s date venues: I went to a variety of date venues on Chmielna but I don’t care so much about crafting the best first and second venue plans while on jaunts. My priority is to find somewhere which is five minutes walk from my apartment which will let us sit at a right angle. I’ll usually have two drinks there and bounce to mine (Plan A). If I don’t feel that the lay is on that night I’ll go for a walk after the first drink and then try to kiss them then (Plan B), with me definitely going for the bounce back on the second date.

This is different to how I run dates in London. I feel that when you’re in town temporarily the girl knows it and has subconsciously decided whether sex will happen or not. If she’s coming on the date then your escalation will unearth that information. If she’s a “no” then she’ll be filtered out by the escalation within the first hour. If she’s a “yes” then the most important question you need to answer is whether it will happen on the first or second date.

Warsaw Itself

While in town I actually did do a small piece of tourism: given I’d already got my (first) lay I decided to go and check out the parks, such as the one just west of the old town and the one just next to the university. Both worth a nice walk.

Apart from that, here are breakdown of costs:

• Accommodation: just off Chielmna for £29 a night. Turned out to be a bargain compared to other properties in the area for a whole apartment (though mine was very small whole units in the same area were usually £40-50). Maybe they had just had a late cancellation or something special was going on. As I mentioned earlier the price of accommodation has gone up dramatically in the past year so try to book as early as you can if you want to keep things cheap.
• A main course is normally £6-10 and a beer £2.5-3 (I recommend Ceprowniak opposite the university as the best place for lunch)
• Cocktails are about £4-5
• Gym day passes at Zdrofit are £9 but when Kaiser went last year he got multiple free day passes at McFit at the end of Nowy. I went to Zdrofit a couple of times though as they have a sauna.

Would I Go Again?

I’ll certainly be back there again at some point. Actually I’ll definitely be back there in November for coaching (16th-20th; if you’re interested then send me a message on my coaching page!). But for a longer trip… We’ll see. I have unfinished business in Belgrade first and I’d like to see a Baltic country first too.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown

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