Thirapongpaiboon came through three qualifying matches, before losing in the final round in both the Australian Goldfields Open and the Shanghai Masters, losing to Liang Wenbo and in a last frame decide to Jamie Cope respectively.&lt;ref name="2012/13"&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; This was the closest he came to reaching the main of a ranking event. He had a very good season in the minor-ranking Players Tour Championship events, reaching the quarter-finals in the fifth and sixth European Tour events. In the fifth event he beat compatriot Thepchaiya Un-Nooh, Liu Chuang and top 16 player Barry Hawkins, before losing 3–4 to Anthony McGill, and in the sixth event he beat the likes of Fergal O'Brien, Ricky Walden and Liang Wenbo, before being whitewashed 0–4 by Mark Selby. He also reached the last 16 of another event to finish 38th on the PTC Order of Merit. Thirapongpaiboon defeated Jamie O'Neill 10–8 and Mike Dunn 10–6 in World Championship Qualifying, but his season was ended in the next round when he lost 8–10 to Matthew Selt. He finished the year ranked world number 71.