The power of upper belt poker face

Do you guys ever catch an upper belt in something, but they act super non-chalant about it so you think you're doing it wrong / it's not working? And due to a lack of confidence, plus a really good poker face on their end, you switch to try something else and lose out on the tap?

It's happened to me like twice now, latest of which was last night. Had someone in a straight ankle lock from SLX which I don't do too much of. Tried for a bit but they didn't tap so I went for something else. After the roll my partner mentioned that he was very close to tapping and I should've just kept with it 🥲

  1. How do I overcome this power.
  2. How do I start using this on newer white belts.