Sniper Game: How to Screen for Accessible Women in Bars and Clubs

Is that girl open for an approach? Here’s how to scope out the most accessible girls in a venue – or make the one you’re after more accessible!

Hello, everyone. Today I will discuss some pickup strategies that can make your interactions with girls in clubs and bars easier.

The subject of this post will be screening.

Screening means looking for receptive girls to approach and assessing how accessible a girl or a group is before approaching.

I have mentioned this subject many times, spread across many posts but never dedicated a post fully to it.

We will discuss screening for good and available targets and what to do when we find a girl or a group that is not accessible.

Screening game, or “being a screener,” is usually defined by being like a sniper. Instead of haphazardly jumping into the cold water, you become more like a tiger watching his prey before attacking.

This is a useful method if you want to increase the success rate of your approaches. You get an idea of how receptive a girl will be before approaching. It’s good for small venues where people can easily see you get rejected if you fail – which is not something you want.

It is also a smoother way to seduce.

 

How Screening Works

Note that we will not be discussing approach invitations, even though it is an essential “add-on” to screening. Do you want to read more about spotting approach invitations and how to trigger them? Check out our posts on the subject.

• 7 Approach Invitations You’ll Get from Girls
• Making the Approach: Picking and Choosing Girls to Meet
• 11 Ways Women Express Interest that Most Guys Miss
• Tactics Tuesdays: Attention Grabs (to Elicit Approach Invitations)

Screening is more about context and her behavior rather than her expressed interest in you. She can be an accessible girl without showing any interest.

Vice versa, she can show a strong sign of interest in you but be stuck in a corner with five gangsters – i.e., not very accessible.

On a personal level, I do not rely on approach invitations – although I always look out for them, capitalize on them, and attempt to trigger them. But If I do not get any, I approach anyway.

However, I tend to be much stricter with screening. If she is very inaccessible, I will not approach. It’s that simple. Now, for some of you, that may seem like a cop-out, but before you make that assumption, please read on. Just because a girl is not accessible now does not mean she will not be later, and it also does not mean we cannot make her accessible. We will discuss this later.

 

Some Words of Caution

What is screening? It is not that hard in theory, but it’s hard in practice. The things I will mention in this post are going to be extremely intuitive to most of you. But in practice, things will be much harder.

First and foremost, just like with looking for approach invitations, often we will be dealing with subtle information. Although sometimes signs are obvious, they tend to be hard to perceive for less experienced seducers. It does not help that you will be looking for those signs in a chaotic, dark, and loud environment.

For example, an obvious sign of accessibility is if she is alone at the bar. On the other end of the spectrum, she’s in a group with a guy. Is the guy into her and does he even have a chance? Is he just a friend? Or is he trying to hook up with her friend? Each of these scenarios will drastically affect her accessibility, and assessing the situation and context requires a trained eye.

She’s in a group, but it looks like they’re discussing the local meat market.

And the solution to this is like with EVERYTHING ELSE in this field – you have to get out and try it – succeed and fail. For example, look at a group, make an assessment, and then approach to see if you were right. Of course, do not generalize based on one attempt; you need to test this with multiple cases to gain a clearer picture.

Another pitfall worth mentioning is that if you are out of momentum or in a more introverted mood, your mind will trick you into believing that EVERY girl or group of girls is unavailable or inaccessible. Be aware of this bias, and counter it by always looking for reasons of her being accessible rather than not. If they all seem inaccessible, look for the MOST accessible group of good-looking girls, and approach them. They may not be your dream girls, but it can get the ball rolling and get you out of that bad momentum zone.

 

What Should You Look For?

It will be hard for me to give you a full list, but I believe the following list pretty much covers the most important aspects to get you going. You may discover other key elements to look for in your assessment of whether girls are accessible or not. That is all cool.

Here’s what I look for:

• How many friends is she out with? Big groups are harder than smaller groups.

• More importantly, how “tied up” is the group? If they are very tied up and seem to have a strong internal vibe, you can mostly forget about approaching – as they have their own private party. However, sometimes the big group is a bit broken up, which divides the big group into many smaller sub-groups. If that is the case, it is generally easier to approach.

• Also, some people in the group will be more immersed in the group than others. Those who are the most immersed are harder to approach than those who are not. Approach girls who are the most accessible and use them to potentially move in to the less accessible ones. This goes for both big and small groups.

• If the girl is facing the crowd, that means she is looking for external attention. If she is facing your friend, things will be harder, but this one is far from a deal breaker, in my opinion.

• Where is she situated? Next to the bar, in the middle of the dance floor, or in the middle of the smoking area? Those locations display high accessibility. If she’s in a corner, she may be less accessible, but if you happen to find a way to get to that corner (have plausible deniability) or just want to be ballsy, then you may still go for it.

• Is she at a table? Generally, depending on the venue, this can sometimes be a deal breaker. Seated girls in high-end venues tend to not be accessible, as the tables are booked, usually by men who have the right to tell you to eff off and make you look bad by doing so. If it is a “girl’s night out” party, she is more accessible.

• If she is at a table in a non-high-end place where table booking is not a thing, you may approach, because nobody “owns” the table.

• How many guys are in the group? The more, the worse it will be, usually.

• What type of guy(s) is she with? Good-looking guys are harder to deal with (but not impossible – some have terrible game). Gangster guys are intimidating and occasionally dangerous, and guys with a player vibe are tough competition.

• More importantly, what is the vibe between the guys and the girls – are they close friends? Are the guys strangers or are they locked in with her? If they are strangers, it is easier to bust in than if they are close friends. If they are from the same social circle, are the guys into the girl and trying to flirt? If that is so, you know they will be hostile and make things harder for you.

• What is the male-to-female ratio? If there is one guy and three girls, the guy will most likely be happy with you joining in. If the ratio is 50% or worse, they will work together to get you out of there.

• Do any of her female friends seem hostile? If yes, the group will be harder to deal with. What you can do is to approach the nicest girl in the crowd, quickly deal with the hostile one, and then deal with the girl you want (if the girl you want is neither hostile nor the “nice girl.”)

• Are there any wildcards in the group, like a girl crying? If yes, stay away for now.

• Is she or any of her friends attention-whoring? If yes, consider better timing (or move on – they tend to be a disappointment).

• Other factors: the chaos level – the more chaos around them, the worse time you’ll have generally. More noise makes it harder to deal with complicated groups, as it requires verbal interaction (the more noise, the harder it is to verbally communicate complex things).

Now, you will have to assess how hard it is. A perfect “set” is very rare, so do not look for it. There will always be something off. So look for these variables and put them together to get an opinion of how difficult the group is. If it is not overly hard, approach; if not, read on, and we will cover some solutions.

 

Other Factors

Remember to consider these factors:

• How hot is she? Is she worth the trouble?

• What is your mood? If you are on fire and have a great, attractive vibe, and you feel ballsy, then you can opt to go for harder groups. I usually do this when I am more warmed up. When I am still cold and have just arrived, I tend to warm up with easier girls.

• Did she give you an approach invitation? If yes, that makes everything easier, and should be taken as a positive sign.

Let’s move on to some strategies you can use to deal with “inaccessible” groups and girls that seem very hard to access.

 

Dealing with Inaccessible Girls

You can, of course, just not give a damn and go in and hope for the best. Sometimes that works when you either miss-assess or happen to get lucky. It’s not necessarily a bad strategy.

However, with ten years of experience, I rarely misjudge, although it happens sometimes. However, I trust my intuition. So, what if you a see a stunner who is just not that accessible?

We will discuss this now.

 

Wait for Better Timing

People move. They eventually go to the bar to order a drink, head to the dance floor, go out to smoke, or head to the bathroom. That is your timing – those things maker her more accessible. I often opt for this strategy – i.e., catch the girl when she is outside for a smoke. This is especially good if she is on the floor attention-whoring in front of a bunch of male suckers. If I approach her at that time, I am also another sucker. Outside, the game is set to be different because she is not there with the intent to attention-whore.

Or say it is as simple as her being in a tight group with her friend on a noisy dance floor. I will simply wait until she is either by the bar or in the smoking area to have an easier time dealing with the group through verbal interaction (which grants you more control – this is key to handling complex social interactions, including seduction).

Cash her outside, how ’bout dat?

Being in a club with lots of circulation is always good (see my post on selecting the right venues) because it increases the chance of things loosening up.

Also, tight groups tend to loosen up throughout the night. This is something to keep in mind. The same goes for potentially hostile girls – their mood may switch for the better. On a side note, girls who initially seem nice can also turn chilly as the night goes on.

Equally so, accessible groups can turn non-accessible. So, if the timing is good, or even decent, do not expect it to get better. If it is within the realm of “acceptable,” then approach. If not, wait it out.

Worst case scenario – a group may leave the club. Well, that sucks. But if you find yourself in a club with only a few hot girls, you need to reconsider your venue selection. If you happen to be in a club with very few hot girls, just change venues or act faster (i.e., go the ballsy route).

It really helps to train your awareness so that you can spot those changes in vibe and scenario. Getting the timing right and capitalizing on swift chances is key if you can pull it off. Sometimes you only have a short time to act.

I do not necessarily recommend saying idle and waiting for a girl to be accessible. Instead, approach other, more accessible girls. It is always a better option. Yes, you may be busy when a window opens, but it is always easier to approach after she’s seen you interacting with other women (see preselection, social momentum, and social proof). You may miss your window, sure, but with good awareness, you won’t – and if you do, it is not the worst thing that could happen since you are interacting with girls anyway, and hopefully they are hot.

This leads me to the next point.

 

Build Your Way In

To build your way in, you will approach an accessible girl to move in to the less accessible ones. By being seen with women, you will come off as more attractive and desirable to other women. So approaching a group of girls next to the girl you want can facilitate the process with the less accessible one, because you will spark:

• Curiosity
• Approach invitations

Hence making it easier for you. The pitfall is that you need to look good in your interactions with the nearby accessible group. For example, if that group visibly rejects you, you will look bad, causing your girl to think you’re a chump. If that happens, your chances with her go bye-bye. So that’s the catch.

However, you can choose to make a risk-free approach so that you have a low chance of visibly failing. The goal is not to seduce the group but to just interact with them to look good in front of less accessible girls.

What you can also do is build social proof in the venue and slowly work it all the way to the difficult group. It is more of a long shot, but when it works, it works like a charm. And hey, social proof is never a bad thing to have in a venue. With social proof, 90% of the girls become accessible, which is truly one of the strengths of that strategy. The problem is that building social proof isn’t the easiest thing to do.

I have tons of articles on the subject that cover EVERYTHING you need to know about this. So check them out.

• 3 Ways to Use Social Proof to Be Scaldingly Attractive to Women
• Hit and Run Social Proof for Girls You Meet at Bars
• Social Proof in Nightclubs: Jumps, Momentum, and Girl Circles
• The Pros and Cons of Social Proof for Seduction
• Using Social Proof to Get Laid: A Report (with Demonstrations)

 

Conclusion

Like I said, I haven’t included all the things I use for screening, so this is not a complete list, and there may be other variables that I have not (yet) mentioned. So feel free to add some of your own in the comments section!

I want to make a departing point – I am always hesitant talking about this subject, especially when I know beginners may be reading this. The reason is that many beginners struggle with approach anxiety, and screening game can be used as fuel as an excuse for not approaching.

That is obviously not good. You need to use screening game from a perspective of “being able to approach right now if you have to.”

I would recommend avoiding using screening game if you:

• Are struggling with approach anxiety – learn how to master your fears first! (Good news; we not only have articles covering it but also a podcast).

• Might use it as an excuse to not approach.

You may, of course, use more screening on nights when you feel extremely tired. But that is my exception. Generally, this rule applies mostly to beginners. Experienced seducers may do as they see fit.

With that out of the way, feel free to use screening for accessibility and availability. If you sense that a girl or a group of girls is unavailable, you can either wait for better timing and talk to other girls to find more accessible targets, or build social proof to open up less accessible girls.

Questions and comments are welcome.

Now go out and experiment.

Best,

Alek