How to stop a ++$i auto increment after a certain number

Question

I'm making this table for a contest, as you can see I'm fetching data from a database as from a array, the thing is there's only 3 prizes and like 40 participants, I want to show every participant and the prizes he's winning so far, but after the third position I want to show the "No Aplica" status next to the name, the thing is I can't stop the counter from going up nor I can make it a set number so it stays on the "No Aplica" option

<table style="display:inline;" class='table-personal table-striped'>
   <thead>
      <tr>
         <th class="line-header">Posición</th>
         <th>Premio</th>
         <th>Nombre</th>
         <th>Puntos Jul</th>
         <th>Puntos Ago</th>
         <th>Puntos Sep</th>
      </tr>
   </thead>
   <tbody>
   <?php
      $i = 0;
      $e = -1;
      if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
         while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
            $premio=array("$10.000", "$5.000", "$2.000", "No Aplica");
            echo "<tr class='posicion'>";
            echo "<td class='line-rows'>" . $premio[++$i] . "</td>";
            echo "<td>" . $row["nombre"] . "</td>";
            echo "<td>" . $row["puntos_julio"] . "</td>";
            echo "<td>" . $row["puntos_agosto"] . "</td>";
            echo "<td>" . $row["puntos_septiembre"] . "</td>";
            echo "</tr>";
            if ($i >= 3) {
               $i = -1;
            }
         }
      ?>
   </tbody>
</table>

Answer 1

You need to increase the value $i if the value of $i is less than 3. Otherwise no need to increase the value of $i.

Do like this:

<?php
  $i = 0;
  $e = -1;
  if ($result->num_rows > 0) {
     while($row = $result->fetch_assoc()) {
        $premio=array("$10.000", "$5.000", "$2.000", "No Aplica");
        echo "<tr class='posicion'>";
        echo "<td class='line-rows'>" . $premio[$i] . "</td>";
        echo "<td>" . $row["nombre"] . "</td>";
        echo "<td>" . $row["puntos_julio"] . "</td>";
        echo "<td>" . $row["puntos_agosto"] . "</td>";
        echo "<td>" . $row["puntos_septiembre"] . "</td>";
        echo "</tr>";
        if ($i < 3) {
           $i++;
        }
     }
  ?>