50-year-old Cliff Josephy’s visage isn't necessarily what one would first imagine when asked to picture a legend of online poker. The nice and cozy smile and free-flowing poker jargon do give him an air of youth, but at face value he still reads more as a businessman or lawyer than a poker professional who came to prominence on the net behind the screen name “JohnnyBax.”

But appearances can also be deceiving and Josephy is indeed probably the most first superstars of the net poker age. The previous Wall Street stockbroker from Syosset, Big apple became the highest ranked online tournament player and set the record for the longest streak at primary with 17 months atop the leaderboards. He has also found a variety of success in live tournament poker, winning two WSOP gold bracelets and cashing for greater than $2.6 million along the way.

With a background in finance Josephy looked to diversify his poker portfolio in various ways, including founding an internet poker training site called PokerXFactor with longtime friend and poker pro Eric “Sheets” Haber.

Josephy, in conjunction with Haber, could also be well known as some of the successful and prolific backers in poker, although understandably that isn't a subject matter that he’s discussed often publicly. It's widely accepted, however, that he was an enormous investor in 2009 WSOP main event champion Joe Cada.

Now Josephy finds himself on the main event final table himself. With 75 million in chips he's the chip leader a number of the nine remaining players, and together with his lead and experience could have a good chance to emerge victorious with the championship bracelet and the $8,000,000 top prize this fall.

“It was my goal. Not only to get there but to take the belt. It looks more like a belt than a bracelet this year,” Josephy told Card Player minutes after making the overall table. “A good a part of the work is completed but we now have somewhat more work to do.”

In fact Josephy is already the odds-on favorite to become poker’s next world champion, with betting sites like Ladbrokes listing him as around 3.4-to-1 to win all of it. Josephy knows that anything can still happen.

“Some favorites have won, some have lost and that's the nature of this sport,” said Josephy. “We will see. To me being the favourite doesn’t really count. I mean I LOVE my position right now, but anything can happen.”

Card Player TV’s interview with Josephy can also be viewed in full below:

Read More... [Source: CardPlayer Poker News]