A thing or two to consider about the currently dysfunctional ELO system on HD

I realize the system is not perfect even when it is working. I also realize a lot of players have improved in the last few weeks and they are not always being allowed to certain lobbies, even though by now their skill and experience would justify it. And of course, brand new players are really getting hit hard because it's not always clear if this person literally just downloaded the game or has been playing for weeks.

However, on the bright side, if there is any, you have played, and won, against players whose ELOs would normally scare you away. A few weeks is definitely enough for someone to go from 1600 to 1700, assuming in the time prior they were playing with purpose and practicing hard.

And you may be playing against those players thinking "OK it's cool, he's just 1660, this should be competitive enough and not impossible for me to win" when in fact they may objectively be closer to 1750.

The point is that psychology matters a lot in this game. If you start a game, and then judge your potential performance based on how high your opponent's ELO is, you may get nervous and mess up. But now you have the benefit of not registering that bit of data.

Of course, the flip side to this is that you're playing players who appear weaker then they are. So in a sense, we're facing a situation of unintended smurfing.

There's a lot of experiments in cognitive psychology to support the basic premise of what I'm saying here, but no need to get into them.

We all know that expectations and how something is presented play a big role in how we perform.

So when/if the ELO system is fixed again, perhaps remind yourself of this period in which you more or less went into lobbies unsure (more unsure than usual, at any rate) of what to expect, and yet performed well (or well enough). ELO does matter, but down the line just go in, try to have fun, learn from your mistakes, and always strive to play people who are better than you. After all, improvement quite often happens at the margins.

So while the ELO system being down sucks, there may be a silver lining here, however thin.

Your thoughts, friends?