Professional poker player Hong Jin-ho, a former professional gamer, has won another huge prize at a world tournament.

Hong Jin-ho competed in the 12th event of the 2023 World Series of Poker (WSOP), “$5,000 Freezeout No Limit Hold’em,” held in Las Vegas, USA, from April 4 to 7 메이저놀이터(local time), and won $208,158 (approximately KRW 271,185) for his fourth place finish.

Hong began the third day of play with 1.28 million chips, six days below average, and steadily increased his stack to 6 million chips to make the final four. In the championship match, he lost most of his chips while defending an “all-in” move by Japanese player Nozomu Shimizu and finished in fourth place.

The eventual champion was Jeremy Ayer of the United States. He earned about $650,000 ($848.9 million) in prize money. Second place went to Brazil’s Felipe Ramos, who earned about $400,000 ($522.4 million). Nozomu Shimizu, who lost to Hong Jin-ho, took third place.

“I’m disappointed with my fourth place finish,” Hong said on Instagram after the event, “but it’s still early in the series, so I’ll do better by managing my mental game.”

The WSOP is the world’s most prestigious poker tournament, compared to the World Cup of Poker, which is a dream stage for poker players around the world, and is held annually in Las Vegas, USA, with tens of thousands of participants from all over the world.

Hong Jin-ho won the inaugural event last year. This fourth-place finish brings his WSOP career earnings to $556,670 ($727,000).

Hong Jin-ho. Photo|MBC
Along with Lim Yo-hwan, Hong Jin-ho is considered one of the two greatest professional StarCraft players of all time. He cleaned up his act by turning into a professional poker player.

Hong Jin-ho recently appeared on MBC’s “Radio Star” and revealed that he was the No. 1 poker player in Korea as of last year, and his winnings exceeded 2 billion won.