Masked man, table 3 seat 7

Well I made a jaunt over to Argosy yesterday afternoon to play in their noon NL tourney. No epic tales of stupendous plays or perfectly executed strategy. It was pretty much ABC poker. The structure is OK, but the payout leaves a bit to be desired. The tourney had (I believe) 56 players with a $70 fee & $60 going to the pool. It seems an awkward payout scale paying seven places & the winner only getting less than $900. The difference in payouts seemed nil, it really needs to be a bit more top heavy.

One of the more unusual things was a player in this tournament was wearing a bandanna. Not on his head but rather over his entire face. He also had a baseball hat & wraparound sunglasses. It was quite a sight, one of the other players asked if he actually allergic to something or if he just liked to wear a "get-up." His answer...... silence. Were not taking a 21 year old Laak wannabe, this guy was at least 45. Throughout the tourney he did not speak, unless he absolutely had to and then it was only one word at a time. It was surreal. Worse yet this guy played waaay fishy & got away with some very suspect plays. He heard jabs from the other players like, "Tonto" "bandit" and "what ya got masked man?" His reply......silence.

I thought he was going to Hellmuth his chair when a new dealer told him he could not use his cellphone/mp3 player at the table. He actually spoke a few sentences in protest, since he was using it as an mp3 player. He did even take off the bandanna to protest to the manager, to no avail. Only thing he got was a warning that "upstairs has rules about what you are wearing, if they call down here you're going to have to take it off. Just so you know, you've been forewarned."

I guess it takes all kinds.

I ended up finishing 11th which I wasn't very happy with. After losing 2 races which I was the favorite in both my dwindling stack & the blinds dictated that I start pushing. Ace-anything at this point. Ask & ye shall receive next hand in the small blind I find A-6 os, it folded around to me & I push all in for nearly 5x the big blind, only to get called in an instant. Expecting to be absolutely dominated I was happy to see that I was actually well yes dominated 38% chop or win. Typically not what I'm looking for especially when 15% of that number is looking for a tie. It was fairly clear after the flop that a tie was not going to save me & him spiking a 9 on the river sealed the deal.

Save me a seat at the final table