known mask variable help

What would be the proper mask input if some of the characters are known?

For example the first letter is "A" the middle is unknown and the last characters are "123!"?

I tried with this:

./oclHashcat64.bin -a 3 -m 1000 HASH -1 symbol14.hcchr A?1?1?1?1?1?1?1?1 -i -n 160 --gpu-loops 1024

but can only get the first letter to recognize. Also I noticed my H/s drops almost in half if I pre-set the first letter as opposed to leaving the mask unknown.

Thanks for you help everyone! I love the community behind this and open source blows my mind