I’m writing in my favorite Caffè Nero in Nişantaşı, looking back on the last ten days of daygame Istanbul.
These stats conclude my third daygame trip to this city:
Opens: 80 Numbers: 22 Replies: 9 Dates: 01 Lays: 0 This was by far the worst conversion from numbers to dates since the beginning of my daygame career. About half of the numbers replied, which in itself is better than my average. However, all of these leads eventually fizzled out over text, with the exception of the 3 leads that left town.
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This Saturday was my last evening in Istanbul. My flight would leave tomorrow at 14:40 and all my leads were dead. Given that I had already two near misses this trip, I was determined to fly home with a new notch. The night before, I agreed for my long term Turkish girl to meet me in Amsterdam end of September. Combined with a proper gym session that Saturday morning, I started my last daygame session with an outstanding vibe. As this was my last evening, my game automatically became more r-selected: I started filtering for rebellious girls and refused to take phone numbers unless I was certain that I could get them out on a date that night.
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This is the account of the second near miss of my first 2026 Istanbul trip.
Day One I was walking down Istiklal Cd. in Şişhane near Galatasaray high school1 Monday around 11 PM when I saw a Turkish girl with puffy hair and tight gym leggings. Feeling a DNA-tug I opened immediately. To my surprise, this girl spoke fluent English - a rare occurrence. She 24 and was an ambitious lawyer.
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This was my first solid number on my first 2026 trip to Istanbul. A short, nice-looking, Turkish local with wavy brown hair and light-brown eyes. I opened her in a side street of the main Nişantaşı shopping street.
The set was rather light and not overly sexual, but I could tell she was really into me. The number close was easy and we agreed to meet for coffee later. She was quite inexperienced, as would become clear later:
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I’m back in Istanbul on a two week trip (one week holiday plus one week of remote work). This time I absolutely nailed my logistics: I’m staying in Nişantaşı right next to Osmanbey metro station. Not only is it arguably the best area for daygame, it’s also a pleasant upscale neighborhood to live in. This is also reflected in the pricing of accomodation and food… but so worth it.
What I was expecting to be a solo daygame trip quickly turned out to be more social than anticipated: I was hitting the streets hard from Saturday to Monday and was spotted by two distinct daygame groups. “Bro, are you daygaming?” I heard on two distinct occasions. Both guys didn’t look like they were going to stone me, so I opened up. I ended up winging with two Turks and bumped later bumped into a coach working under the pseudonym “Casanova”. Alright. Overall I’m pretty happy: winged daygame is easier, and the decent male company boosts my vibe and gets me out of my head.
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