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Player Profile: Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy

Cliff “JohnnyBax” Josephy has been playing professional poker since 2005 and has consistently been one of the most dominant players in the poker world. A former stockbroker, he began playing in 2004 and his game quickly improved, thanks to natural aptitude as well as coaching from fellow players like Eric “sheets” Haber and Scott Fischman. Josephy was soon making final tables on a nearly daily basis and winning tournaments at a rate that was impossible to overlook, all remarkably undercover thanks to the faceless nature of online poker . “JohnnyBax” became a hot topic across every Internet poker forum; they dissected his game, debated his identity, and sung his praises. Even coverage of live tournaments used his screen name; in a short time he had become a mystery and a legend.

His relative anonymity lasted until the World Series of Poker in summer of 2005, when he was knocked out of a preliminary Hold ‘Em event and decided to play that afternoon’s Seven Card Stud event. He entered on a whim, never having played in a Stud tournament before and only having played Stud a handful of times in the past. With a few minutes of quick coaching from a couple of his bracelet-holding friends, Josephy won the event, pocketing over $192,000 in prize money and adding a WSOP bracelet to his already-impressive poker resume. The online poker world could finally put a face (and a name!) to JohnnyBax.

In April 2005, PocketFives.com deemed him the #1 ranked player in the online world. “Bax,” as he was often referred to in forum conversations, held onto this honor for the next seventeen months. He has remained ranked in the top 100 ever since, and as of August 2008 was ranked 11th.

Josephy is one of the founding partners of what many consider to be the premier poker training site, PokerXFactor. Along with fellow pro Eric “sheets” Haber and software wizard Scott “mindwise” Pendergrast, he launched the site in March of 2006. The site features training videos, hand histories, player blogs and articles created by not only Bax and sheets, but also numerous talented Internet pros.

This father of three typically saves his weekends to spend time with his family, meaning he often misses out on the weekend majors and some of the most massive paydays online. Still, his largest online cash to date is just over $60,000 for a win in Pokerstars’ shark-infested $200 rebuy. Live poker has afforded Josephy a shot at that big payday, and he has several six-figure cashes, including a high-profile final table at the Aruba Poker Classic, when he got 2nd for nearly $450,000. As of July 2008, his online winnings total almost $1.9 million and his live winnings are over $1.8 million.

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