The Romania pokercommunity here on PocketFives consists of a little more than 1,000 players who have combined for over $42 million in lifetime earnings. The group has amassed $5.5 million in the last three months and recently got a boost courtesy of GabrielP(pictured), who is known as Gabriel Popescu in the real world. Popescu won the 888 Poker Sunday Challenge in recent weeks to take in $25,000.

“It feels great,” Popescu told PocketFives in an exclusive interview. “I had a bad start to the year, but this win changed things. It’s also very good for my confidence.” There were 921 entrants and the tournament lapped its $100,000 guarantee by 19%. He was one of four PocketFivers at the final table.

The 888 Sunday Challenge boasts a $90 buy-in with one $90 rebuy. Popescu told us that he always takes the rebuy at the beginning of the tournament because he is “more comfortable playing with more chips and, after the rebuy, it is just like a deep-stack freezeout.” He added that most of the 888 regs opt for the rebuy.

His top 10 largest online MTT cashes come from five different sites and, as such, he is pretty spread out compared to other PocketFivers. The Sunday Challenge was his largest cash to date, yet he has over $1.1 million in winnings in his profile. He told us, “I play around 16 to 20 tournaments a day on five sites.” He largely shies away from PokerStarsand Full Tilt, saying, “When I started playing poker, it was on the European sites, so I’m just used to playing on those.”

As the title of this article alludes to, poker is still growing in Popescu’s home nation of Romania (pictured). He said, “Three years ago, no one knew about poker here. Now, everyone is interested. Some of them just don’t understand what we do; they think it’s just gambling. Others are interested in it and understand it’s not an easy game.”

He lives in a small town in the province of Valcea and said he has “a lot of friends who are happy with my life as a poker player. My parents live very close to me, so I can visit them any time I want.” He is tops among the 14 PocketFivers with PLB scores in Valcea and #10 in all of Romania. He has user names entered on 15 online poker sites that PocketFives tracks, one of the most we’ve seen of anybody.

Prior to playing poker, Popescu was at University Politehnica in Bucharest planning to get a job as an engineer. He recalled, “I found out about poker from a friend and thought I should give it a try. I was planning to get a job in my hometown and studying a lot, but you never know what to expect from life.”

He has been a member of PocketFives since 2009 and, on the live scene, finished second in the Pokerfest Romania Season 3 Main Event in Mamaia last year for $33,000. He has 10 tracked scores of at least $10,000 in his PocketFives profile. All told, Popescu owns 1,690 in the money finishes online for an average of $682 apiece.

The Sunday Challenge runs weekly on 888 Poker. If you don’t already have an 888 account, sign up through the links on PocketFives to get an enhanced 100% up to $600 deposit bonus (regularly 100% up to $400), $8 free, and one free month of PocketFives Training with no sign-up fee. Get started here.

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