When I was a white belt, I started messing with lapel guards, to the point now where I have a pretty good system, and I do very good against pretty much everybody at my rank and give a lot of trouble to the belt above me.

With that said, we are a very heavy competition gym and in certain rounds if I do not play the lapel game I feel like people have an easier time passing.

Is this just because the lapel stuff is my A game, or is it because I am not as good but the lapel system kind of gives you an advantage, making not so good people look much better than they are?