- When Barney hooks up with a woman Lily had been saving for Ted, she gets revenge by stealing his "playbook," which contains all the moves he uses to pick up women. But will Barney have the last laugh?
- In the aftermath of Robin and Barney's break-up, Robin states that she wants to take a break from being in a relationship. Ted and Marshall are certain by this statement that she'll soon find her next long term boyfriend. Barney, on the other hand, is all set to go back to his womanizing ways, and turns to his "playbook", where he's written all the scams he's used to pick up women in the past. When he uses the scam he calls 'the Lorenzo Von Matterhorn' to pick up Shelly, a friend of Lily's, who Lily has been "saving" for Ted for three years, an angered Lily takes her revenge by staging her own elaborate scam to steal Barney's playbook. She vows to post the playbook on the Internet. But curiosity may get the better of Lily, and Marshall, Ted and Robin when Barney starts to stage the scam he calls 'the scuba diver', the scam that was on the last page of the playbook before he tore it out prior to the book being stolen.—Huggo
- Future Ted explains the key to dating is self-confidence, which Barney had in spades, but usually that confidence was in one of his characters. One night, Barney appears in full scuba suit while drinking scotch. Lily pulls aside Claire (Sarah Wright), a woman at the bar, warning her of Barney's villainy, and she sits down with the rest of the gang as they explain the events that lead up to that night.
Barney and Robin were coping with the end of their relationship in their own different ways. Robin said she wanted to throw herself into her career, but Marshall and Ted are convinced she will find the love of her life, citing several friends who gave up on dating to focus on their work, only to be married months later. Barney, on the other hand, decides to re-enter the dating scene with a vengeance (Milswanca: "Mother I('d) Like (to) Sleep With And Never Call Again"), using his sacred "Playbook". The book describes a set of con artist scenarios (scam, con, hustle, hoodwink, gambit, flimflam, stratagem and bamboozle) designed by Barney to manipulate girls into bed.
The Don't drink that: I saw some guys slip something in there. The Mrs Stinsfire: Enrolling as the house mother for a bunch of rowdy kappas, by posing as a elderly woman
Meanwhile, Lily tries to set up Ted with Shelly (Eva Amurri), a fellow teacher. When she had originally tried to get them to meet 3 yrs ago, Lily found Ted and Marshall in the middle of a chicken-finger mouth-stuffing attempt, so she convinced her coworker that Ted wasn't there. It's been 3 yrs and Shelly no longer remembers Ted and thus Lily takes another shot at setting them up. However, Ted is stood up by Shelly; when Lily confronts her, she discovers that Shelly was seduced by an exotic man at MacLaren's. Lily realizes it was Barney and angrily confronts him.
Shelly says that she arrived at the bar an hour early and met an amazing man. Barney describes the play he used, the "Lorenzo Von Matterhorn", using fake websites (which establish Barney as a wealthy (a reclusive billionaire with a penchant for adventure), philanthropic person, and a guy with a large penis for whom penis reduction surgery is not an option), a smartphone (which the girl uses to check out the websites while Barney visits the restroom), and an exotic name. The SNASA: Secret NASA. He has been to the Smoon, or the secret moon. The Cheap Trick: I am the bass player for the cheap trick band. The Ted Mosby: i got left at the altar My Penis Grants Wishes: a genie comes out of it, if you rub it hard enough
Barney's next move is a play called "he's not coming," where he seduces vulnerable girls at the top of the Empire State Building. One of the girls Barney picks up, however, is an actress friend of Lily's, and she steals the playbook when in Barney's apartment.
Lily reveals the ploy to Barney, and threatens to post the playbook on the Internet if he doesn't stop using it. Barney shows up at the apartment in a scuba suit, saying he has one last play, "The Scuba Diver." Lily tells Marshall to post the playbook, but Marshall is bamboozled as there is not a play called "The Scuba Diver" in the playbook. They go down to the bar, where Barney sits in a booth. The gang heads over, and Barney tells them he plans to seduce the blonde by the bar. Which brings everybody to the present and Claire sitting in the booth with Robin, Marshall, Ted and Lily, listening to Barney's exploits so far.
They ask him what "The Scuba Diver" is, and Barney breaks down, saying his breakup with Robin was hurting him more than he thought, and this was how he coped. Touched, the gang convinces Claire (a girl at the bar, portrayed by Sarah Wright) to go out with Barney for a cup of coffee. After they leave, the gang gets a text message from Barney and finds the description of the "Scuba Diver" under their table at MacLaren's. It was actually an elaborate con; involving Lily's disgust at the playbook, revealing Barney's tricks to Claire, Barney's fake breakdown over his breakup, and his friends encouraging the prey to go with Barney.
Finally a new co-host, Don (Benjamin Koldyke), arrives at Robin's pre-morning show, and Robin suddenly realizes that Ted and Marshall may have been right.
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