Eight years ago, Mark Newhouse was on the path to poker stardom. Three months after final tabling his first WSOP event, the 21-year-old went on to win the 2006 WPT Borgata Poker Open along with $1,519,020. With a bankroll worth well over a million dollars, Newhouse took his game to the L.A. Commerce Casino.

Newhouse’s plan was to spin his profits into an even larger bankroll through cash games at the Commerce. Unfortunately things didn’t work out quite as planned since the young grinder “lost his mind” and set his money “on fire.” As Newhouse attests to, he wasn’t very smart with his winnings and this cost him.

But the Chapel Hill, North Carolina native never gave up on poker. He’s continued to play professionally for the past decade through a mix of online games and traveling between L.A and Las Vegas. He’s sporadically played tournaments during this time as well and decided to enter the 2013 WSOP Main Event.

Throughout the 2013 ME, Newhouse looked like a determined man, never giving up on his bid for the final table. And Newhouse managed to do the unthinkable by battling through 6,358 players and into the November Nine. “I’m feeling great, it was a crazy day,” he said after making the final table. “Anyone who knows me and who plays poker with me on a regular basis knows I’m not a patient person, but there’s so much on the line, you just have to do it sometimes.”

With 7,350,000 chips, Newhouse’s odds of winning the 2013 Main Event aren’t the greatest. He’s miles away from chip leader J.C. Tran (38 million chips) and the second shortest overall stack at the final table. But win or lose, Newhouse has already accomplished quite a bit just by making it this far. And even if he busts out in ninth place, he’s still guaranteed a $733,224 payout.