It's not about playing hard to get, what I said does work (like a charm I might add) especially well with up themselves girls. Another variation is like this...
Scenario: Beautiful woman at a bar, man approaches and buys a drink for himself
Him: "Excuse me, what did you say??? ... Sorry, not interested!"
He then walks back to his mates without so much as a return look, his mates then tell him that she watched him all the way back to where he sits, with a very puzzled look on her face. Whether she approaches him later or not isn't part of the lesson.
And yes, this came up in a tutorial as a discussion for 1st year psych, it then got turned into a "field trip" where 8 of us approached 10 girls each (at 10 individual bars) with an average 90% hit rate (read: girl wasn't pissed off by the approach) and an average of 7 of those 9 girls approached the guy. Our group got an A+ for the assignment we wrote regarding this. I say that so you know there is some substance there.
Problem is, guys come on far too strong usually, they seem desperate to get their end away and broadcast that to the first girl that gives them a tingle in the nether regions. This is why most girls have their guard up in the first place.
Another field trip ensued (yes, all of my first year psych papers were on this subject) where just myself and a mate (who for some insane reason, gets any girl he wants). I just observed him and what he did... He "appeared" to not give a sh*t, then it dawned on me and got me an A for an essay, "Show her you don't care about the outcome"
Again there was a group experiment, we staged a speed dating event at uni. The guys of course were from the same tutorial group and the girls were "selected at random." We had guys acting desperate (not over the top though, this was controlled, but ms luscious will know what I mean when I say that) and guys acting nonchalant. The less interested a guy, the more interested the girl (of course, he had to be INTERESTING to keep her attention)
Girls have it easy getting guys as a pair of boobs, nice eyes and a sexy smile will melt *almost* any man. But girls notoriously make it very difficult for guys to get an in (unless as you said, he was insanely hot). Truth of the matter is though, any guy can get ANY girl with the right approach.
Once you read this, don't give me the dating equivalent of "Nissan's are sh*t, but I have never driven one, my mate told me so it must be true!" These were quantifiable results and experiments which were backed up by some pretty talented professors. I don't care if you don't believe it, but do try it out.
And yes, we did have the female contingent in on our little experiments, they gave us some fantastic insight into the female psyche and were the catalyst for a series of very interesting, and I might add very fun, extra curricular activities
I will leave you with an interesting thought... Girl's don't goto a bar looking for a nice guy, so don't play the nice guy. Be a smart ass, but not arrogant. Don't be the guy who she can see having kids with, there will be no fire. Be the guy that she can see herself taking home to her own place.