One item that has not been mentioned is that most players have to play with some frequency to maintain a "healthy game".
Personally, I noticed that if I do not play for a week or so, my play tends to suffer.
Another thing that can help is playing with players that have better skillets and watch how they approach a similar game that you are both playing together.
If two players of the same caliber are matched against each other and one has not played in a month and one has played a few games, each of the last 30 days... I believe that the player that has played a few games the last 30 days will have an advantage in that matchup.
Also, the major contributing factor is the percentage of matches that you win as a player. If you win 51% of your matches, that's good...
But a lot of the top players in the world win 70% of their matches or more compared against all players. It may not seem like a big deal but winning against 80 or 90 percent of the matches that you play is VERY difficult.
check out the "WIN PCT" if the top 100 when matched against the top 250 players here:
https://www.ifpapinball.com/rankings/power100.php
I believe that a lot of the "luck" is removed from determining the top players when analyzing the win percentages.
