Player Update: JohnnyBax

He’s been dominating the toughest MTT’s in the world for over 3 years and the legendary Cliff ‘JohhnyBax’ Josephy is showing no signs of slowing down.

The double triple crown winner (who was the Pocket Fives #1 ranked player for over a year) took down FTOPS Event #15 this month (PLO Hi/Lo) for $46,125 and we thought we’d pay tribute to Bax by reviewing another vintage year for the New York native.
His prizes on PokerStars recently topped the $2million mark – something only a handful of players have ever achieved. Highlights this year include 2nd & 3rd place finishes in the $1,000 buy in Super Tuesday (for $59,917 & $43,365) - in fact, his runner-up up spot in July came less than 24 hours after a second in the $200 Re-Buys for $38,807! The $100 & $200 re-buy tournaments have been his bread and butter all year and his combined scores just for his top 3 finishes in these two events total well over $160,000 just for the last 7 months.

As well as his victory in the FTOPS, Josephy has also final tabled the $750k GTD (6th, $23,234), the $65k GTD (2nd, $15,395) as well as taking down the $40k GTD ($12,000) in 2008 to take his Full Tilt winnings to over $430,000.

He says he hasn’t had enough time to play many live tournaments this year, which probably explains his lack of results in the offline circuit in 2008 although he did manage to cash in the WSOP Main Event (386th, $28,950), an event which he says “Is the one event where you still get people who don’t know what they are doing”.

With the continued success of Poker X-Factor, its clear that even being a family man and significantly older than most of the internet pros hasn’t detracted from JohnnyBax continuing to show them all how to do it. With a major o8 title to go with his WSOP Stud victory in 2005, maybe we will see Bax starting to take on the H.O.R.S.E games with increasing frequency in 2009. Whatever he turns his hand to, we are sure he will be successful.