I was inspired by Java's recent post to write something about [C] Division, competitiveness, picking and self-esteem. It's a personal view and series of musings rather than an attempt to make a point. Think of it more as a thought-provoker than a position piece.

The tl;dr version is: I think some people, myself included, gain some sense of self-esteem from CR and it is more convenient to ignore the lack of logic in beating people you've picked to obtain CR.

It's probably worth setting out my opinion of my own playing ability first off since this is ostensibly a blog post about self-esteem. I am worse than my current CR would suggest, nowhere near in the top 20 coaches on this site. On the other hand, I am a decent Blood Bowl player with the tendency to make errors that cost me games against good opponents, especially when I am not using all my brain power on the game (e.g. tired, trying to do other things at the same time, etc.). The standard "I'm better than average" opinion.

That said, I have relatively low self-esteem. This is in general life as well as on this site. I say things IRL that are boastful to make myself feel good: "Did you know this isn't even my best race?" said to a friend in my local league. What a dick right?

I also, like many people, want to be liked so should probably shut up about me...

As Java said, CR is not a very accurate measure of a coach's ability. When Malmir is ranked below someone on the site, we know the CR difference is likely not reflective of the ability difference, especially if he's dropped to Super Star. Therefore it is objectively meaningless to try to obtain it, especially through the most efficient way of doing so: picking.

Picking people to gain CR efficiently and picking people to win are slightly different. To be most efficient, you would either only offer or accept games against people ranked lower than you but not by too much (one band e.g. Star for Super Stars) and playing a race that is usually at a disadvantage against yours (e.g. low TV Chaos Chosen against Tier 1 teams) with a small TV difference. Picking to win is accepting/making offers against much lower ranked coaches and usually taking any TV advantage you can or overdogging to the max while taking any hard counter matches you can (e.g. Amazons as Dwarves).

Picking people simply to win shouldn't result in any boost to self-esteem in theory because it's the expected result and presumably it won't be much of a challenge/effort. There should be little reward for little effort. And even in CR, there is only a little reward, but it is still a reward and does still allow players to climb rankings, in turn boosting self-esteem if they ignore the lack of meaning to that CR ranking.

My theory is that some people are content to pick (actively or by selective acceptance of offers) because they are able to willfully ignore the lack of meaning to CR gains that they achieve and take those gains to represent something good about themselves. This applies to me to an extent. It's obviously not binary: pickers vs non-pickers, but a scale. Based on Java's post, I can admit to myself that I pick using his definition of it.

Now I want to see if I can "have fun" and still feel good about myself when I lose CR.