I like the quote, but I have a nitpick:

We would all like to believe that... if we lose it is because of the good luck or cheating of our opponent.

When I've lost in the first round of single-elimination tournaments, I've found myself hoping that the person who beat me would prove skilled enough to win the entire tournament. That way, my loss wouldn't mean that I totally sucked, but only that I wasn't the best. So I think the quoted observation fails to account for nuances relating to how losses inform us about our skill level.