In the second to last running of the Full Tilt Poker $750,000 Guaranteein October, Luis Rodriguez Turko_man Cruz (pictured) chopped three-handed and walked away with just over $90,000. The Spaniard has been representing his motherland well and told PocketFives.com what it felt like to come away with nearly $100,000 in a big-time Sunday Major: “The feeling is awesome. It’s great to accomplish something you have been working really hard on.” PocketFives.com sat down with Cruz to relive his score.

This isn’t Cruz’s first claim to fame, by the way, so if you think he’s a one-trick pony, think again. Cruz’s largest online poker cash to date came in June 2009, when he won the PokerStars Sunday Millionfor a colossal $225,000. Last month, in addition to chopping the $750,000 Guaranteed, Cruz finished second in the PokerStars $100 Rebuy for $58,000, a tournament he took third in four months ago for $41,000.

On the fateful Sunday on Full Tilt, Cruz held a big stack during the beginning and middle stages of the tournament before his run-good fell by the wayside. Then, he was relegated to grinding a 10 big blind stack until three tables remained. He ultimately picked up pocket aces to double up on the final table bubble and entered the finale as the chip leader. He fell heads-up to EatMyBluff8 after being the chip leader when the chop occurred; EatMyBluff8 banked $101,000.

Cruz has ascended to the top of the PocketFives.com Sortable Rankingsfor Spain in part due to his recent $750,000 Guarantee final table. He can be found at 182nd worldwide and owns more than a million bucks in tournaments tracked for the PocketFives.com Poker Rankings. On the superlative of being the top-ranked player in all of Spain, Cruz told PocketFives.com, “It’s nice to be #1 in the Rankings, but I don’t think many of the good players from Spain are there, so it’s kind of not real for me. I just try my best every day I play, but there many other good players in Spain besides the ones on PocketFives.com.”

When this author thinks of Spanish poker players, Carlos Mortensen (pictured) jumps off the page. Mortensen is the World Poker Tour’s (WPT) all-time money leader and the only player ever to win the WPT Championship and the World Series of Poker Main Event. Cruz agreed: “Carlos Mortensen is the best when you look at his results and his game, but he is probably not as famous as he should be. He is really respected, but poker in Spain is not the phenomenon that it is in the United States.”

Cruz got his start in poker like many players from the United States did. His friends began playing Five Card Draw in college and then broadened his horizons to games like No Limit Hold’em and Pot Limit Omaha. Cruz revealed that his home game is still going strong: “We started to play a dealer’s choice game at least once per week and are still having our home game just for friends and for fun five years later.”

Cruz had mentioned that poker in Spain is not nearly as popular as it is in the United States, so we asked him how the game is viewed. His response: “I think PokerStars is doing a good job in the media of introducing poker on the sports news and also doing some television shows that have made the game more famous. People now look at poker as the skill game that it is. Also, Full Tilt and PokerStars run their own circuits in Spain that have introduced tournament poker with great structures to Spanish players.”

Full Tilt’s foray into Spain is the Full Tilt Poker Series España, whose Grand Final in Barcelona is coming up on December 2nd. PokerStars, meanwhile, is just a few days away from holding its Estrellas Poker Tour Barcelona event on November 22nd. The Barcelona tournament is also a stop on the PokerStars-backed European Poker Tour.

Check out Full Tilt for more details on the $750,000 Guarantee.