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Professional poker player and Silver Spring resident Brock Parker says he's "not very good with money."

But after winning two tournaments at the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas this month for more than $700,000, the 27-year-old now has a substantial margin for error.

"I think I'll be OK for a while now," Parker said on the phone Thursday, from a condominium he rented in Las Vegas.

Parker has been in Las Vegas for nearly a month and playing in the World Series of Poker, the biggest poker event in the world, which features dozens of tournaments and tens of thousands of competitors. On June 5, Parker beat out 367 players to win a six-handed limit hold-'em tournament for $223,697.

He immediately entered the six-handed no limit hold-'em event, which included 1,068 participants. On June 8 he won that event for $552,745. During that stretch he played poker for at least 12 hours a day for more than a week.

"It's just weird and surreal, it was very strange," Parker said. "I never expected anything like that to happen."

It was his first two tournament wins in five years of participation in the World Series of Poker, which rewards its champions with gold bracelets in addition to substantial cash prizes. He now has a chance at the coveted Player of the Year award, which goes to the poker player with the best overall performance during the World Series' 57 tournaments.

Parker expects to play in about 25 tournaments over the course of the World Series, which began in late May and ends July 15 with the "Main Event," "the best tournament of the year," Parker said.

He hopes a deep run on the highly-rated tournament that airs on ESPN will give his strong play some added exposure – his two tournament wins will not be televised.

"How can someone run so good that [winning two tournaments] happens within four days?" ESPN.com poker analyst Andrew Feldman wrote in a blog post shortly after Parker's second victory. "… That's just incredible."

A graduate of Springbrook High School in Silver Spring, Parker attended the University of Maryland for a year before dropping out to play poker professionally. There is no real poker scene in Silver Spring, Parker said. He either plays online or at casinos in Atlantic City.

He used to play almost exclusively online but online poker has become less lucrative for top players as federal restrictions crack down on online gambling and inexperienced players are going up against the professionals less and less often, Parker said.

He originally got interested in poker through a different card game, "Magic: The Gathering," a science-fiction-themed card game that he played in his youth with several of his closest poker friends. The rules of the game are different than poker but both take mental dexterity and cunning, Parker said.

That mental skill is necessary to stay afloat in the rollercoaster ride life of a professional poker player, but Parker admits that some luck had to be involved to win two tournaments in the biggest poker event in the world.

"It seems almost impossible but stuff like that happens," he said.