Late last month, Uruguay’s rphtook down the Full Tilt Sunday Brawl outright and banked $25,000. There were over 600 entrants that week and rph was one of 63 to make the money. Even though he has over $3 million in online MTT cashes, this was his largest score on Full Tilt and the second time he final tabled the tournament in January.

“I think it’s very important to start the year in good shape,” the South American told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “I am happy about getting deep twice in the same tournament in only a couple of weeks with very tough fields. At this point, this is even more important than the money because it allows me to know I remain competitive.”

In mid-January, rph finished second in the Sunday Brawl for $16,000. Therefore, as he alluded to, he has had a rock solid start to 2015.

The time he won, the final table was stocked with poker talent, including Tom hittheholeMiddleton, Ben NeverScaredBWilinofsky, and Mike SirWatts Watson, who finished third, fourth, and sixth, respectively.

“All of them are super good,” rph said of his fellow PocketFivers. “I have had the opportunity to discuss poker with NeverScaredB many times. He’s a fantastic player with a great combination of experimentation and math skills. I got lucky against him in one critical spot. I’ve had a lot of history against hitthehole too, another very good player who takes unorthodox lines.”

PocketFivers, led by rph, scooped 70% of the Sunday Brawl’s prize pool that week. As far as his share of the money, rph said he’d allocate it towards a house he bought two years ago. “It needed a lot of rehab,” he said. “We were able to move in last year and, as usual, it cost more than expected. This led me to sell a percentage of my daily action, which is also good to combat the huge variance of MTTs.”

rph has a WCOOP Second Chance win, a $109 Rebuy win, and multiple victories in the Bigger $162. The former was worth $112,000 and came in 2013; it’s one of four scores over $50,000 we have tracked for him.

He officially hit $3 million in online tournament winningslast December and said of the milestone, “My poker career is mostly about study, discipline, and hard work than anything else. I think there are more talented players than me for sure, but I am very stubborn. If something doesn’t work the first, second, and third tries, be sure I am going to go for a fourth try.”

rph is ranked #119 worldwide on PocketFives and is the #1 player in the Uruguay pokercommunity. He plays on PokerStars and PartyPokeras zugzwang16and owns a Master of Arts in Social Sciences.

He said, “I still work as a consultant in social research. I am thinking about doing something that combines journalism and social research in the future, but it’s just an idea for the moment. Working as a poker pro has many advantages, but I’d like to complement it with things that give someone a bigger sense of social contribution, even though you can do nice things from the poker world like organize charity events and fundraising campaigns.

Congrats to rph on his Sunday Brawl win!

Want the latest poker headlines and interviews? Follow PocketFives on Twitterand Like PocketFives on Facebook. You can also subscribe to our RSS feed.