For Cliff Josephy, the decision to leave his brokerage job was a real gamble, but one that has paid off (in the short run, at least).
According to PokerPages.com, Josephy recently won $192,560 at the World Series of Poker after leaving HD Brous & Co.'s Great Neck, N.Y., office in March. (Josephy, who has an unlisted phone number, couldn't be reached for comment.)
Josephy, also known as “Bax”, generally plays no-limit hold'em — a game made wildly popular among amateurs by the 2003 victory and multimillion-dollar purse of accountant and amateur card player, Chris Moneymaker. (That year, the World Series had 839 entrants; this year, thanks in no small part to ESPN's wall-to-wall coverage of the event, the field has swelled to 5,619.)
In this year's tourney, though, no-limit hold'em wasn't Josephy's game. After getting knocked out of that event, he decided to enter a seven-card stud tourney, and eventually beat out 471 other entrants, including two-time winner Minh Nguyen and retired Russian tennis star Yevgeny Kafelnikov.