User blog comment:Mineko Charat Lucky/Don't Play to Win, Ever/@comment-137.226.66.4-20130111075310

Well, first of all: Everybody plays to win. Because winning is fun and nobody likes losing.

That said, the "try hard" part is the problem. If dying once or twice in your lane makes you play more aggressive and try harder to get a kill, it will neither lead to self-improvement, nor to victory. Which a lot of players don't seem to realize. Instead, they will start feeding even worse, somebody else will start flaming and it all goes downhill from there.

Even in pro games, individual players will have a bad match and lose their lane. Do they play aggressive to get more kills? No, they start playing more def because it helps their team and WINS the game.

Still, the problem about playing to win is getting frustrated when victories don't happen. And the key to overcoming that part is being happy with your own performance (like the anonymous poster below said). But that's an other point that many people don't get...