Cliff ‘JohnnyBax’ Josephy

Family man Cliff Josephy made an impressive transition over to poker after a Wall Street company he worked for shut down. Though he’s been doing very well at tournament poker for over a decade, it was only in the summer of 2016 that he rose to receive widespread recognition in the poker world. In the WSOP Main Event of that year, he finished in 3rd place for $3,454,035 – losing out to a deserved trophy winner that year in Qui Nguyen. To run that deep in such a large and exhausting tournament – the field had almost 7,000 runners and days of play ran extremely long – is a testament to Josephy’s ability as a player. You can see how Cliff’s Main Event run ended at PokerTube here.

Cliff’s live winnings total over $6,800,000 since 2004. His most notable achievements have come in the form of two WSOP bracelets – winning the $1,500 Seven Card Stud event in 2005 for $192150, as well as the $3,000 No Limit Hold’em Shootout event in 2013 for $299,486. He has over 20 different WSOP cashes in total, and the diversity of games that he plays and succeeds in demonstrates his versatility at the game. He also has a couple of WPT titles on his record, along with a 2nd place finish in the 2017 $5,000 PokerStars Championship Bahamas Main Event for $403,445.

Though you might not think it by looking at Cliff – he is the antithesis of the classic hooded young poker degenerate – he has had an active online presence in the past and previously has ranked very highly on various leaderboards. Playing under the screenname ‘JohnnyBax’ on PokerStars, he has won over $4,000,000 playing online poker. Between April 18th 2005 and September 18th 2006, Josephy was actually #1 on the PocketFives rankings after some big wins. He won the Super Tuesday on PokerStars in 2009 for $68,250 and has a FTOPS title to his name from FullTilt in 2008. Between 2007-2010, he was ranked in the top 0.01% for his online tournament winnings in all but one year, according to the Official Poker Rankings site.

He also is a poker coach at the site Poker X Factor, where he produces videos for other players to learn from. Outside of the game, he enjoys spending time with his wife and children in New York.