70 Year Old Bad Ass Purple Heart Recipient John Smith Took 2nd Place In the WSOP $10k Heads Up Event For The 2nd Straight Year

WSOP - The final match of the tournament couldn’t have paired up two players with a more diverse background. Smith is a 70-year-old highway contractor from California that received a Purple Heart. His first cash at a WSOP event came in 1991 in a $1,500 Seven Card Stud Hi-Lo event. Mateos wasn’t even born until three years later.

“It’s really sick and really impressive because he played really different than the other players,” said Mateos about Smith. “It’s really tough to play against him because he makes different plays every hand. He changed his game every hand, so it was really hard to read.”

This was Smith’s second consecutive runner-up finish in this event. Last year, Smith finished runner-up to Alan Percal for $198,192.

I love this man. John Smith took the poker world by storm the last couple of days, advancing to the finals of the WSOP $10k Heads Up event for the 2nd year in a row. The 10k Heads Up event is one of the most challenging of all 70+ tournaments played at the WSOP, as edges are very small and the best heads up players in the world will crush amateurs 99 times out of 100. But that has not stopped Mr. Smith from making it to the finals two straight years, and despite falling short of the win both times, getting there is super impressive.

Not a bad couple of days at the office:

And then when you learn more about him and how baller he is, you can’t help but to love him even more:

Poker News - Growing up poor in a small California town, Smith joined the Army after graduating high school. As America became more involved in the conflict in Vietnam, Smith was shipped over to help in the fight against the communist North Vietnamese. In the mid- to late-1960s the numbers of young servicemen in the country swelled to as many as 500,000.

Serving in the Army from 1964-67, he spent one year in Europe (1965) and two years in Vietnam (1966-67). In 1967, only a couple months from his tour of duty being over, he was on duty aboard a tank. His crew veered off a main road across a rice paddy when his world changed.

“Apparently the Vietnamese knew we were coming and they set a mine,” he says. “The mine went off and blew the tank up. I got shrapnel all in me and an eardrum blown out.”

Smith was in the hospital for two weeks, but was lucky to be alive. The explosion blew through the bottom of the tank. He was later awarded the Purple Heart for sustaining an injury in battle.

“I really felt bad because there were soldiers next to me with arms and legs missing and it was really nothing compared to what I was seeing after the explosion,” he says about the scene around him after the explosion. He would learn it was even worse. “Everyone got killed except for me. I was lucky.”

When the mine exploded, Smith was half in and half out of the tank. The explosion rocked through the bottom of the vehicle, and he believes being partially outside the tank saved his life.

After leaving the service, Smith looked for a new job – something he could work his way up in and build a career. It’s a story of hard work and dedication, and he’s proud of where he is today.

“After Vietnam, I got a job with a road contractor and worked myself up to my own company,” he says. “It’s been a success story.”

Now Smith owns an asphalt company in Los Angeles and works as a road contractor throughout California. He adds: “I’m a very proud American, and I just love this country.”

What a legend. He served in Vietnam, barely survived a mine blast to his tank, came back to America and started his own company, and now just fucks around and plays 10ks at the WSOP, as well as his monthly homegame with a “minimum $3,000 buy-in, he says, and players regularly win or lose $10,00-$20,000.” I want to be John Smith when I grow up. A true American success story, indeed.