Hi! My name is Pora Dumitru Adrian. I’m 35 years old, and I was born in a small mining town in Gorj County, Motru. I graduated from the Faculty of Mining in Petroșani.
Like any boy from Motru, I was encouraged by my family to follow the path of mining, hoping to become a mining engineer. But around the age of 20, things changed—I discovered this wonderful game called Poker. I started playing with friends in front of the block for the smallest stakes possible, continuing in college with fellow students. Then I came across a famous ad: “If poker is a game of luck, why are the same faces always at the final tables?”
That’s when I realized it wasn’t just about luck—it involved intelligence, emotional control, math, and more. Through platforms like PokerStrategy and Holdem.ro, I started studying the game. I read Doyle Brunson’s two books (Super System 2) and Ace on the River by Barry Greenstein, and I followed the High Stakes Poker show. From there, nothing could stop me.
I kept playing live in my hometown, and then, through a friend, I discovered online poker around 2011. I started from the very lowest stakes—$0.10 sit and go’s—gradually moving up to $2.50 with 180 players.
Meanwhile, I met a girl named Andreea, fell in love, and—14 years later—she’s now my wife and the mother of our daughter, Anastasia. At first, it was hard to explain and convince her that poker isn’t just a game of chance, but with persistence and results, I eventually succeeded. :)
From 2011 to 2016, I ground the low stakes and managed to make a profit of about $200,000—until July 17th, when I won the biggest tournament of my career at the time, the famous $215 Sunday Million, for $165,837.
My journey continued when, together with three partners, I opened the largest poker school in Romania’s history: Evil Ace, which reached about 150 members and nearly $2 million in profits! In 2018, due to disagreements with the partners, I decided to leave the school and focus more on myself and a small group of close friends.
One of the proudest moments in my collaborations with other Romanian players was when Eduard Paraschiv (eduardnho11) also won the Sunday Million on May 24, 2020, just two days before my 30th birthday. :)
That same year, 2020, began my adventure on GG Poker. After a slow start, a few months later I made my biggest final table on the platform, which also brought me my biggest score there. After about 13 hours of play, at 8:30 AM, I managed to defeat the well-known regular Joshua McCully at the GG Festival H-39: $1,050 GGMasters High Rollers for $161,875.
Less than two months later, I achieved my third biggest score—but also my most painful one. I narrowly missed winning a WSOP bracelet in the $777 Lucky Sevens 7-Handed, finishing runner-up for $141,099, losing to the well-known American player David Jackson (ZONEDin). I later met him in person at the World Series of Poker, and I told him it still hurts losing that heads-up. :)
Other notable scores on GGPoker include:
1st place: $98,864 in the $525 Bounty Hunters HR Main Event
2nd place: $90,000 in the $525 Bounty Hunters HR Main Event
3rd place: $51,276 in the $525 Bounty Hunters HR Main Event
My career summary includes over $7 million in online cashes with profits exceeding $1.4 million, but I don’t want to stop here. I’m also focusing on the live scene, where I’ve managed to accumulate nearly $600,000 in cashes.
My motto?
“In life, it’s not about how hard you hit, it’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”—From the movie Rocky