---
title: Episode 165 Pickup Luck vs Skill
episode_number: 165
era: late
source_file: Episode 165 Pickup Luck vs Skill.mp3
audio_size_mb: 56.2
duration_sec: 1841.2
duration_min: 30.7
language: en
provider: deepgram
model: nova-3
diarized: true
confidence: 0.996
transcribed_at: 2026-05-27T17:06:38Z---

# Episode 165 Pickup Luck vs Skill

**Speaker 0:** Podcast 165 from Tom Torero. It's a daygame pickup podcast, and this week's episode is about luck versus skill. How much of picking up girls, cold approach pickup is based on chance, randomness, I. E. Luck, and how much of it is actually a skill? Or is this podcast full of shit? Is this just a marketing ploy to sell stuff when actually there is no skill? You can't improve at all. And the more you do, just the better results you'll get because it's random and eventually you'll just meet a girl who's down. Common criticism of both what I do and pickup in general. So which one's which? And this not an abstract podcast today. We'll talk about actual statistics using poker analogies because I've already said in podcast 94, the parallels between pick up and poker. Poker is pickup. Pickup is poker. In that podcast, I interviewed an ex pro poker player who's also a daygamer. And a sub topic for today's podcast which is linked balance of luck versus skill and the frustrations therein is emotional control. The badass Buddha's zenness of a good, of a great pickup artist. Why do some people puke their guts out on the roller coaster and plea to get off? And why can some guys stay on? Why do some guys actually enjoy it? So we'll talk about emotional control too. I am soon to fly back to The UK for a few weeks. And in The UK, I will be driving the Black Sheep Bandit Passion wagon, the Mojo Dojo around The UK and to Dublin in Ireland as well. I'll be stopping off in Cardiff, in Birmingham, in Manchester, in Edinburgh, like I said, in Dublin, in London, and maybe Bristol as well to do a free meet up British tour. One man, one van, this time with a plan. In the back of the van, I'll be flogging my new book, but that's not the purpose of the tour. The purpose of the tour is to say hello to British and Irish daygamers. It's something I haven't done for a long time. So look out for a white van driving through your area, parking up on your street. No. I won't be selling ice creams. But, yes, I will be dishing out sweet love. Not in a not in a physical sexual sense, and I, but in that emotional bond. Very important emotional bonding. Alright. Luck versus skill. Tom Torero, are you full of shit? I read I read often comments, emails about, Tom, why are you selling stuff? I mean, I know this is your job, but that is cheeky to sell stuff, to actually ask for money, to sell books, to sell products. What are you doing, man? You you just sold out, bro. You just sold out. That's a common criticism when you make a business a business and you got to earn a living. Another common criticism is in the beginning when you're not so well known, you put out some lay reports, successes and guys go, good on you son. This this gives me hope. I can see you improving. Well done. And then there's a tipping point and you'll notice this if you put out content online. When guys start to resent success, that kind of crabs in the bucket mentality. And they're like, this this is not fair and then that becomes this is not real, this is not possible, this is this is bullshit, man. This is just a numbers game. There is no skill and that is a self perpetuating thing where where the guy convinces himself there is nothing to learn, that's why he's not getting results. So that is important in considering this topic, but also in the hours you're putting into this. If you're putting your hours into learning something, you do have to consider practicalities like how long is it gonna take? It was the return on investment. Is it worth doing? Or is the randomness element so big that actually it's out of your hands and all this is all this is just bullshit. So it's an important question to ask and answer, and I've looked into it mathematically looking looking at the poker stuff. Because a game with no luck like chess or go to, you know, very cerebral games where luck doesn't come into play, Then you say, fuck yeah. You know, I can see someone going from beginner to intermediate to advanced. Maybe you've watched a grandmaster, respect. Everyone says that, you know, fantastic, learnable. But a game like poker where you're looking at the dealing of a pack of cards, poker players and also courts looking at the legality of casinos and gambling and cases involving these, they have to consider this crucial element by law. How much of it is a skill? You know, if you're talking about pro poker players or how much of it is luck. Casinos definitely wanna know this. And pro poker players definitely wanna know this. So daygamers and pickup artist should stop and think, you know, what is the percentage? Is it fifty fifty? Luck versus skill? Is it sixty forty? Is it eighty twenty? We'll ask that question today. I love the famous poker quote which is what inspired this podcast. Poker is 90% skill and the other half is luck. Yeah. Or, somebody much wiser than me once said, poker is making the wrong move at the right time. You'll know the cheesy quote by Seneca, the pickup pimp, McDaddy. He said, luck is preparation meeting opportunity. So Seneca my old boy Seneca's going for the fifty fifty approach of saying, 50% preparation, 50% opportunity, bish bash bosh, there's your luck. Okay? Okay. How do you navigate not just the cards being dealt, because you could say that's the the luck element of poker, but the chips that you play. That's the skill element and the emotional control. I also like that analogy. A good player, as in a poker player, but we can talk about a good daygamer, he knows how to minimize his losses during the bad streak and how to maximize his wins during a good streak. So that's navigating these portals of luck. What are the lucky elements in daygame? Instinctively, you probably know them, but just the fact that you crossed paths with that girl, you're in a certain place, she was in a certain place, right place, right time. Wow. Magic can happen. Stars collide. Yeah. How long is she in the city for? Has she just arrived? Arrived? Is she going home tomorrow? Has she lived there all her life and she's just about to go off to college? Again, out of your control. What period of her ovulation cycle is she in? Is she in that secret society super horny magic window middle of the month? She's ovulating, she's looking for bad boy players. Or is she on her period? Is it just before her period? Did she get laid yesterday? Has she not got laid in a couple of months? Did she get picked up by a daygamer last week? That you don't know. Are you even her player type, you know, because she has that mythical type in her head where she likes the bodybuilder or she likes the DJ or she likes the bohemian artist, that's her fantasy. Are you that? Yep. Has she just got engaged? Has she just split up with her boyfriend? Has she just quite literally walked out of a solicitor's to get divorced. I once met a girl like that in Earl's Court in London and she came down these steps of a posh looking building and I opened her and she had tears in her eyes. And it turns out, yeah, she just got divorced. I didn't get the number, but I thought, there you go, you know, that's quite random. Yep. Has she shaved down there? Sounds like a flippant comment like has she shaved her legs? But to girls this matters and occasionally when I'm going for same day lays, a girl will say, not now but later. Or I met a girl yesterday and she said, and I instant dated her and she said not tonight but tomorrow night. And you look in her eyes and as a beginner you think, ah, she's just blowing me off rather than blowing me. It's just an excuse. But then you realize no to girls it it does matter, certainly to some girls. Maybe she hasn't shaved down there. Maybe she needs to go home. That's why girls nip into the bathroom before a lay and they do mystical magical things cloaked in secrecy in the bathroom that guys don't understand. She's just getting the garden ready. She's just sorting herself out down there into a girl that matters. Yep. Has she done this before? Has she just been to Bali or to Cancun or to Ibiza and, you know, banged four guys in a row and now she's over random sex for a little bit? How old is she actually? Is she in that golden period of 18 to 24 where it's bang bang bang, chitty chitty bang bang? Or is she 27, 28, and she's trying to be calmer, she's trying to be good, she's now thinking about marriage and babies. So again, out of your control. I know you can guesstimate her age, but randomness and chance, my friend. Yeah? And is she even free when you are? So you suggest tonight and she's going to a birthday party. You suggest tomorrow and that's when she's meeting her dad. You suggest next week and that's when she's off on holiday. Randomness, randomness, randomness, plus so many other things like weather. Have you ever been cock blocked by weather where you've set up the day and then it's pouring at night and many girls just don't go out in the rain? She won't get wet and for you, she won't get wet. I've been cock blocked by an earthquake last year or the year before in Japan. I think it was two years ago in Japan. Yeah. And I had set up a date. The girl was really on and then there there had been an earthquake in the North Of Japan and the girl had to go and visit relatives to check. They were okay. How selfish of her. Giving up a daygame date with Tom Torero to go and check on family members. Jeebus. You know? So things like that. Out of your control. And then obviously, I preach skill. I preach learning structure, and I preach a model, and I teach stuff. So therefore, I have some kind of belief in the evolution of skill of daygame. I spend my life making videos and podcast and talking about get better, get better. This is how you get better. Because it's one thing to be able to do daygame. It's another thing to be able to teach daygame to break it down. So is this just a load of shit? Right. Let's talk numbers because that was ten minutes, one third of the podcast waffling. Let's talk about poker numbers. And Douglas Zaire or Zaire, an ex pro poker player, wrote a book on the maths of poker. And he says in the short run, and this is the golden nugget of this podcast, in the short run, poker is like a game of chess for $1 followed by a coin flip for $10. The coin flip dominates. So if you don't get that, just think of in the short term, chance dominates. So if you go out, you're a fair weather weekend daygamer, you're a dabbler, and you just do five approaches, or you've done 10 approach and then you email me and you say, it didn't work. Okay? You're massively relying on luck. So short term daygamers, it really is statistically based on luck. But now here's the second part of the quote. In the long run, poker is like a game of chess for $10,000 followed by a coin flip for $1,000. So over time in the long term, skill dominates. Drill that into your brain. Okay? A pro trader, a pro poker player, a pro daygamer, as I've said before, zooms out and looks long term. What were your results over half a year? What were your results over a year? What were your results over a decade? Okay? Did you see see the skill set in action? Skill dominates statistically. He says the tipping point for this quite literally is after about 1,500 hands played. And if you consider most online players play 1,500 hands in about nineteen to twenty five hours, he says. That's a day's worth of poker hands without sleeping. Then after that, it becomes about skill. That's quite a lot of hands. So how many approaches until the daygamer starts seeing skill. Now, instinctively, you think, well, that is spam approaching. Okay. I just need to do 1,500 opens or whatever and then I'll find a yes skill. That's not what he's saying. Okay. Good poker players are not interested in the short run. They can ignore the short term fluctuations, that's the emotional control, to become a good poker player. And the magic is that they're not playing the cards. Poker isn't about the playing of the cards because because that's the random element. That's the spam approach. Poker is played with chips. Really important. So the day game is played in the second after you open. The spam approach, it just plays off the opens. That's playing with cards. But the day gamer plays off the chips. I'll say that again. The day gamer plays off the moment, she stops and you've given the compliment, play on. That's where skill is shown. That's why the first ninety seconds, the first two minutes, that my friends is the game. I made a video on the first ninety seconds of stacking and vibing around the topic she gives. That's attraction. That's skill. Okay? So the cards dealt is the luck. What's not luck is how you navigate those cards. Okay. Another quote. It's difficult to assign credit to luck versus skill without mentioning the time frame. Over very very short time periods, poker is almost all luck, and over long time periods, it's almost all skill. And in a paper called the role of skill versus luck in literal paper, subtitled evidence from the world series of poker, Steven Levitt of Freakonomics fame, he says this about that balance of short term luck, long term skill. And I quote, determining the legality of online poker, a multibillion dollar industry, courts have relied heavily on the issue of whether or not poker is a game of skill. Using newly available data, we analyze that question question by examining the performance in the two thousand and ten World Series of Poker of a group of poker players identified as being highly skilled prior to the start of the events. Those players identified as being highly skilled achieved an average return on investment of over 30% compared to minus 15% of all other players. So plus 30% versus minus 15. This large gap in returns is strong evidence in support of the idea that poker is a game of skill. 30%. So could we say that cold approach pickup, the skill element of it is 30%. 70% is chance. That's still a lot of chance. Yeah? Okay. Dealing with that randomness. Dealing with the daygame gods laughing at you. And in the new book below the belt, I've got this thing where this year I was driving the van in Estonia and I met this girl that was so on and she fucking loved the van and she was all about rock and roll and the date was so on. And I got her back and escalating and reached that magic moment where, you know, half of her clothes are off, half of my clothes are off and she said she's gonna go to the bathroom. I should say we're actually in an airbnb apartment for this one because it was so fucking cold at the time in Estonia. She went to the bathroom and the daygamer knows, okay, this is she's either gonna come out fully clothed and she's gonna go or she's gonna come out with just her panties on and let's get ready to rumble. Yeah. And before she went into the bathroom, said, oh, can I just put on a song I've been listening to lately? Yeah. Fuck yeah. Give girls the laptop. Let girls have control over YouTube. That's very important. Don't impose your music on her. Let her choose the music. That's a key part of logistics as I've said. And she put on the Rolling Stones, you can't always get what you want brackets, but you get what you need. A song that I had been listening to in the van. I love it. It's the theme song for Californication, obviously, the famous Player TV show. Anyway, Mick Jagger is singing out in the apartment as the snow is falling outside. You can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes, you might find you get what you need. And she came out of the bathroom and she smiled and she said, look, thank you but no thank you. I'm gonna go. You know, turns out she already had three or four lovers. She was highly promiscuous. She'd gotten laid the day before and as she left the apartment and the snow fell sadly outside, Mick Jagger sang to me and the daygame god smiled. Fuck you, Tom Torero. That's your 70% randomness. Yep. That's the frustration of daygame. And in poker, emotional control key. In daygame, emotional control key. Why are some daygamers mushy? I wrote a blog post on this. Why is say some day gamers sentimental, overly, gooey and they give up. Alright. They they want the highs without the lows. They want the light without the shadow. Whereas why can other players who survive long term, how can they stay ice ice ice baby? Yeah. Like a pimp. They don't get drawn into oneitis and clinginess. They survive shit tests. They're not all reactive like little bitches. They don't gossip like girls. They're not all prickly. They don't get drawn into frame battles online and with girls, they're just ice. They're just cool. And it's no coincidence why a lot of really good day gamers, they are former or current pro poker players. That's what they do for a living. They can survive it. They can zoom out. Yep. It's the same with why are a lot of day gamers into competitive sports. Perhaps they I've met many day gamers that are boxers. Again, they can zoom out. They're not looking at the short term loss in in one match, in one round. They can zoom out and look at their whole fucking career. Yep. So the the mental qualities of a good player are the same as a mountaineer. They're the same as a golfer. They're the same as a boxer. They're they're the same as a pimp. Ice ice baby. Yeah. Emotional control. And you might have heard this word tilt. Tilt in poker. And I shall read the definition here because, it's key for emotional control. Tilt is a poker term for a state of mental or emotional confusion or frustration. And just change poker to daygame here. Tilt is a a state of mental or emotional confusion or frustration in which the player adopts a less than optimal strategy usually resulting in the player becoming overly aggressive. This term is closely associated with steam and some consider the terms equivalent, although steam typically carries more anger and intensity. Certainly, I've met a lot of angry daygamers. Placing an opponent on tilt or dealing with being on tilt oneself is an important aspect of poker daygame. It is a relatively frequent occurrence due to frustration, animosity against other players, or simply bad luck. Experienced players recommend learning to recognize that one is experiencing tilt and avoid allowing it to influence one's play. And the word tilt, they think comes from, you know, the pinball thing where you get really frustrated and you tilt the machine and then the machine used to flash and lock the flappers and say tilt tilt tilt. So that frustration of being dealt bad hands. Some guys can deal with it more than others. Other guys just rage online. Fucking girls, you know, the fucking weather, fucking flakes, fucking this. They can't deal with it. They give up. The daygame dropout rate, as I said in a recent video, super super high. Over 90% of guys that start give up, basically, because they can't deal with the the random element of it. They refuse to recognize that there's skill. They refuse to look long term, and they're frustrated with the tilt. Alright. What does wonderful Wikipedia say for poker players who are experiencing tilt? For the beginner player, the elimination or minimization, I didn't know that was a word, of tilt is considered an essential improvement that can be made in play. Many advanced players, after logging thousands of table hours in field daygame, claim to have outgrown tilt and frustration. Although other poker professionals admit it is still a leak, quote, unquote, in their game. One common suggested way to fight tilt is to disregard the outcome of pots. This is why I'm making this podcast. Yeah? Particularly those that are statistically uncommon, so called bad bets when one puts a lot of chips in the pot with the best hand and still loses, deserve little thought. They are the product of variance, not bad strategy. So when you accept the randomness of daygame, weight off the shoulders. When Mick Jagger sang to me in the apartment, sure, it stung for five minutes, ten minutes. That evening, I remember going to bed fucking frustrated. I, of course, I had a wank before bed because I had a pooh balls. But I woke up the next day, got back in the van, drove on, went to a beautiful lake, played on, did more daygame when I reached Tallinn. It had gone. So I recognized tilt and I know how to deal with it. I continue the Wikipedia thing on tilt. They say another method for avoiding tilt is to try lowering one's variance even if that means winning fewer chips overall. Therefore, one may play passively and fold marginal hands even though that may mean folding the winning hand. This may also imply that one plays tightly and looks for advantage advantageous situations. Do you recognize that in daygame? That's the guys that minimize opening because they don't like the stings, and they open just off IOIs or AIs, approach invitations. IOIs being indicators of interest. So more and more daygamers are telling me now that they don't really like the cold approach. Slap in the face. They just open off approach invitations. Well, they're doing less daygame. Now yeah? There's advantages and disadvantages to that. I've made videos on that. Yeah? I continue reading. Once tilt begins, listen up daygamers, players are well advised to leave the table and return when emotions have subsided. Yeah. This is guys getting angry online and doing massive troll threads, wasting all their time. It's like a daygamer getting blown out and getting blown out again, then bad luck, then bad luck. They're getting really angry. That affects your vibe. Catch 22. Yep. And this article on tilt says, walk away from the table and return when your emotions have subsided. When away from the table, it says players are advised to take time to refresh themselves. Tom Torero said this before, eat and drink nonalcoholic if necessary. So sit down and have a break from, your daygame. Take in some fresh air. Okay? So if you want a day game jolly and things are going badly, take a day off. Go and hike in the mountains. Go canoeing. Go to a museum. Listen listen to some good good music. Go and see some live comedy. I've said again and again. If none of these, it says, work in lessening tilts, players are advised to leave the game and not return to playing until they have shaken off the results that led to the tilt. So, yes, it might have been bad luck, but yes, also it might have been lack of skill. So stop spam approaching. I made a video a couple of years ago called should you stop daygaming or when should you quit daygaming. Watch that if you're one of these guys that's done 10,000 approaches and you've got laid once. Yeah. From cold approach pickup. It continues. The intent of the advice is to prevent the upset person from letting negative emotions lead to bigger losses that can seriously hurt one's bankroll. Tilt has to be taken seriously, and one must realize immediately when being on tilt. So this is daygame emotional control. Taking a break from poker is the best option. So take a break from daygame. Tilt has already ended many poker careers. Some players can win six times in week, but on the seventh day, they lose more than when they what they had won in the previous six days. The progression in poker for these kinds of players will be hindered because their anger controls them. So these are the angry pickup guys online, and when you meet them and you go up to them, hey, man. Are you fuck off? Or you wing with them and it's like, woah. Bad vibes. Bad vibes. They're not, in in control of their emotions. One way to avoid this, it says, is to pay close attention to your playing statistics. Tom Torero says track. Yeah? Pay close attention to your playing statistics because you might start playing more aggressively and more hands than you did before. Okay. So two really big things today on the percentage of luck, the percentage of skill. So let's just say 30% skill in day games, so skill definitely exists, and emotional control. So tilt, another poker analogy. So during those rough times, knowing when to walk away from the table. Yeah? So that's mind games. We're not talking about in a game here as in not going out and doing cold approach pickup and preparing your mind by chanting positively in the mirror. No. We're talking about actually being outside, being on the battlefield, being shot at, you know, taking punches and how to deal with it in the moment. Yeah? It is a roller coaster. Daygame, games you. As I've said, the game games you. Right? Poker games you and that it's intermittent reinforcement like the pinball machine. Some people think pinball machines, yeah, it was completely random. No. Not at all. Massive skill involved, yeah, in collecting points. But the problem with this intermittent reinforcement and intermittent rewards, if you know basic pop psychology, is that this creates addiction. This is a game technique in itself, obviously. When you're giving the girl intermittent reinforcement and rewards, that's the hot and cold, that's the roller coaster that you put her on. This is a way to get girls forever. They become hooked on the pimp. They become hooked on the pickup artist that does this, who creates drama. Drama. One minute, he's into her, then the next minute, he's not returning her calls. But game is doing this to you. So be aware that daygame is highly addictive. Cold approach pickup is highly addictive. I talk about this in in the new book because you walk out thinking, I could turn the corner and there could just be a girl who's ovulating and she she likes guys who are exactly like me, right place, right time, you never know. And if you're a long term daygamer, you'll have experienced that on some of the shittest days. Yesterday, I was in a pretty sleepy mood thinking, I've got laid here, but I haven't had any real magic happen. And as I was gonna get a coffee, I hadn't even brushed my teeth. There's a confession. It was like lunchtime apartment here was messy. Nothing was prepared and I left the house and I was on my way to get a coffee. And a girl from the other side of the shopping street, she looked at me once and then I glanced back, she looked at me twice. I walked on, and she was still, like, half looking at me. I went in, and sure enough, she had been looking at me. And sure enough, it was her day off. And sure enough, she was wearing red, which is a classic ovulation signal. Biologists say when girls wear red or pink, subconsciously, they are displaying their ovulation window. Anyway, as I'd already said, instant date, and I didn't get her, back, but hopefully today. Hopefully, she'll come out today. Why was I talking about that? Yeah. Because then that gives you hope for the next daygame session. If I go out later today, I'll be thinking, well, it happened yesterday. It might happen today. So that element of chance draws you into daygame and the game games you. Right? And the mental qualities of a player is being able to survive this bipolar up and down. Some guys, I said, they puke their guts out because they get the high serotonin thing, and then they get the lack of oxytocin. They plunge then into neediness and clinginess. They get sick of the game. And there's many, many guys I've taught, many guys I've winged with who just give up. They run for the hills, they take up yoga, they take up meditation, they jump into marriage, then they say they're over game, they hate game. Yeah. Because it's fucking traumatic. It is traumatic. So ice ice baby. Alright. I shall leave it there. That was podcast episode a 165 on luck versus skill. No. This is not a load of bullshit. There is skill. So improve your odds. Improve that 30%. Improve as much as you can. And then God bless the daygame gods. Let them rain down prime pussy upon you. I shall speak to you next week. Goodbye.