Just after the stroke of 2 am Lake Tahoe time and the fifteenth hour of play, Jordan Ramirez toppled Jason Graeb to claim his first World Series of Poker (WSOP) Circuit ring in the $400 Six Max along with $14,991 and entry into the 2025 WSOP Tournament of Champions.
It was a marathon final table but Ramirez was carried to the end by a boisterous late-night rail that included his friend and fellow Alaskan, Sterling Lopez. Both players traveled independently to WSOPC Lake Tahoe from Alaska, where they grind out the local home game scene several times a week.
One day later, Lopez won the $400 Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better, beating a field of 113 entries that included a final table with five-time Circuit ring winner Jarod Minghini and Women in Poker Hall of Famer Allyn Shulman, whom Lopez defeated heads-up for the win.
Lopez can't avoid friends
The win was even sweeter for Lopez because it helped to shake off the disappointment of a second-place finish earlier in the series in the Pot-Limit Omaha event. He also had a tenth-place finish in this summer’s $10,000 WSOP Pot-Limit Omaha 8 or Better World Championship.
Ramirez, who was playing in the Monster Stack across the room, rushed across to be the first to congratulate Lopez once the final card was dealt. It was the rare instance of back-to-back ring winners appearing in one another's victory photos.
But the two friends did not make the trip together, in fact, they didn't even know they'd run into one another 3,000 miles from home.
"I plan this around going to places that I don’t run into Alaska people," Lopez said. "I like playing with other people. And the first one I saw when I got down here was Jordan."
Ramirez runs a handyman business in Alaska and has plenty of time to run into Lopez. "I do play a lot of poker. I run a home game and we play about six times a week."
One for the group text
The tight-knit Alaskan poker community isn't very big, Lopez says. "Most people have paying jobs so they can only spend a week or two at a time traveling down here at WSOP Circuit events or at the (World Series.) Whenever we are all in the same place we always stick together. Everyone is on a group thread together sharing stories."
"You have to be really lucky to win a tournament," Lopez continued. "(What are) the odds of two people from Alaska being down here at the same time? Something special is happening here and we both appreciate that quite a bit."
"I can guarantee you —" Ramirez interjected. "Next year there will be a lot of Alaskans up here."
