Another professional poker player has died, this time by her own hand.

According to media reports, the lifeless body of Brandi Hawbaker, 26, of Playa Del Rey, California, USA, was found April 13 in her suburban Los Angeles residence.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office, after an autopsy of the body, ruled the death was a suicide, media reports said.

The woman, who had been a poker pro for several years, suffered from severe mental illness, media reports said.

According to tournament records, Hawbaker had earned a total of $40,389 on the poker tournament circuit in her brief lifetime, including $8,359 at last year’s World Series of Poker (WSOP) in Las Vegas, by virtue of a 55th-place finish in a no-limit Texas hold ‘em event.

She also won more than $20,000 by finishing in 35th place at a World Poker Tour (WPT) event in 2006.

Hawbaker is the third professional poker player from the USA to die in recent weeks.

Earlier this month, John Goodman, 36, a poker pro from Austin, Texas, USA, died after a lifelong bout with spinal muscular atrophy, a crippling disease that put him in a wheelchair.

And last month, a poker pro and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Ernest Scherer, were found bludgeoned to death in their home outside San Francisco, California, USA.

Mr. Scherer was 60.

The Scherers’ murder remains unsolved.

(E-mail Tom Somach at tomsomach@yahoo.com.) =A0