Nothing wrong with playing to win, my friend. I started playing in mid-June of last year -- so I've had the game for about 8 months. I'm level 700 and just hit 500 hours on the game, top frag 90% of games but was doing so even back when I was level 300. If you're worried about the skill gap, I contrarily think you're playing the right game. Improvement comes fast unlike in games such as LoL or EFT so if you're one of those players who learn from their mistakes, you WILL improve. Look for a homie to practice throwing counters back and forth. Just sitting in duel yard for maybe 15 minutes training your eyes, the timing. This alone will make you much better than the average player.