The recent PokerStars Spring Championship of Online Poker (SCOOP) produced a variety of wins by PocketFivers. Members of the online poker community dominated, including taking four of the top eight spots in its high-stakes Main Event. Winning the mid-stakes version of Event 19, a $530 buy-in Pot Limit Omaha tournament, was none other than Julian jaeh00d Rodriguez, a longtime PocketFiver and native of sunny Miami, Florida. He’s had success in the past in some of the world’s largest tournaments and boasts a smiling Buzz Lightyear as his avatar. PocketFives.com sat down with the poker prodigy to learn about his SCOOP run.

His success in Pot Limit Omaha tournaments is a result of playing the game early on in his career. He told PocketFives.com, “Pot Limit Omaha was a game that I initially started playing. I began with cash games and that’s how I built my bankroll. I played both Hold’em and Omaha, but at the lower limits, there wasn’t that much action at the Pot Limit Omaha tables.” Recently, he’s converted from primarily being a tournament player to honing his cash game skills on the virtual felts. Rodriguez explained, “At the beginning of this year, I started concentrating more on cash games, so I haven’t put in as much volume in tournaments as I used to.”

Despite his lower volume, his results in tournaments are impressive. He finished fourth in the $200 Cubed event held as part of February’s Full Tilt Online Poker Series (FTOPS) for $46,000. He was the runner up in the $20 rebuy ($17,000 Guaranteed) on Full Tilt during the same month for another $5,000. He final tabled the Sunday Mulligan in December for $7,000, grabbed third in a $30,000 Guaranteed Sniper tournament on UltimateBet last July for $8,000, and won the Full Tilt Poker $35,000 Guaranteed in June for nearly $9,000. On his progress making the transition to cash games, he told PocketFives.com, “Financially, I’m at the point where I don’t need to sit and grind $30 and $40 tournaments every day. I like the hourly rate much better in cash. There is less variance, but I’m still learning.”

He got hooked on poker after playing with his friends in $5 home games in Florida. Over the past year, his game has excelled, highlighted by a conversion to cash games, but still maintaining his edge in tournaments. On what he attributes his recent run to, Rodriguez commented, “A lot of my success in the past year has been attitude. Attitude is a big part of handling swings. I see poker now as a long-term game rather than daily wins and losses. Everyone sees me hitting a big score, but they don’t see the 1,000 tournaments I put in.” He’s piled up $133,000 in earnings in tournaments that are tracked for the Online Poker Rankings since the year began.

Prior to turning pro, he made his living as a firefighter between the ages of 18 and 21 and played poker in his free time. He’s been relying on the game for income for the last 15 months and is showing no signs of slowing down. In fact, he’s already making plans for the 2009 World Series of Poker (WSOP), which kicks off on May 27th from the Rio (pictured at left) in Las Vegas. Rodriguez is planning to compete in events that sport a buy-in between $1,000 and $2,500. He added, “If all goes well, I might play in the Main Event. I’m renting a house with a bunch of friends that I met online and this will be my first WSOP. I was in Las Vegas two months ago, but I think I might be a bit overwhelmed when I get there. It’s everything I’ve watched on television.”

His Pot Limit Omaha cash proved to himself and to the entire poker world that he can compete in multiple games at the highest levels. He explained, “At this point, I can play both games at the same time online. When I was in the SCOOP event, I was playing Pot Limit Omaha, a Hold’em tournament, and a few Hold’em cash tables.” Madly flipping among the various game types was a breeze for the young gun. With 100 players to go, he improved from holding just eight big blinds to becoming one of the chip leaders. Rodriguez recalled, “It felt amazing. I played for 12 hours and just went on a bit of a hot streak.”

Whether his success was due to a hot streak or not, we look forward to more big things from Julian jaeh00d Rodriguez in the future.