Every Roughrider Poker Tour field has a mix of grinders, regional champions and characters, and today’s lineup at Jackpot Junction is no exception. Here’s a look at some of the players we will be keeping an eye on.
Joseph Osterbauer Jr. — The Man Who Christened This Stop
When the Roughrider Poker Tour made its Minnesota debut at Jackpot Junction in 2025, Joseph Osterbauer dominated the field and walked away with the bracelet. He beat Chandra Kontham heads-up in a back-and-forth battle to take home $38,000, the biggest score of his career, with his father, Joseph Osterbauer Sr., cheering from the rail. Asked what it meant to have his father there, Osterbauer kept it simple: “It’s everything, man.” Fitting detail: after the three-handed deal was struck, he let the table know his birthday started at midnight. The Minneapolis player has more than $200,000 in career earnings and returns to the room where he picked up the biggest win of his career. Joseph senior tells us that his son will play either today or tomorrow, so we'll be watching for him.
Jamie Meidinger — The North Dakota Closer
Few RPT regulars have had a run like Jamie Meidinger’s 2025. The North Dakota player won the RPT South Dakota State Poker Championship in May for just over $90,000. A few months later he bagged an overwhelming chip lead at the RPT Tri-State Poker Championship, entering the final day as the overall leader with more than 1.4 million. That one got away, as Bridget Johnson eventually claimed the title. Meidinger knows how to build a stack on this tour, and he’ll be looking to finish the job.
Jordan Handrich — From the Big Game to the Bingo Hall
Jordan Handrich is the only player in today’s field who has sat down with Jennifer Tilly and Gerard Piqué on camera. She earned the Loose Cannon seat for Season 2 of the PokerStars Big Game On Tour through an audition at Resorts World during NAPT Las Vegas. She was then staked $50,000 to play high-stakes cash against Tilly, Piqué, Sam Grafton and Griffin Benger. She brought her own “two truths and a bluff” table talk and battled back from a deep hole at one point. Handrich is also among the winningest women in Minnesota poker history and looking to add to that total today.
Paul Jain — Two WSOP Final Tables
Paul Jain brings the most Las Vegas pedigree into the room. He has reached two World Series of Poker final tables, finishing 7th in a 2019 $600 Deepstack for $59,075 and 7th again in a 2021 $1,000 Super Turbo Bounty for $22,783. He’s no stranger to this stop either, having cashed 24th at last year’s Jackpot Junction Main Event. He has more than $110,000 in career earnings.
Thomas Gjerde — Playing Since Before Most of the Field Was Born
Thomas Gjerde learned poker at 12 years old, when his parents needed one more body to fill their home game. More than six decades later, he’s still at it. In 2020, at age 71, the Willmar regular won the Free Poker Network King Slayer National Championship at the Golden Nugget in Las Vegas, topping a 202-entry field for $25,000. His message to the younger players at the time still holds: “Don’t worry about getting old. We can beat these young guys.” Now in his late 70s, he made the short drive from Willmar to prove it again.
Muneer Ahmed — A Minnesota Mainstay
Dassel’s Muneer Ahmed has been a fixture on the Midwest circuit for well over a decade, with more than $200,000 in career earnings and 51 recorded cashes. His signature result came in 2012, when he won the Mid-States Poker Tour Main Event in Tama, Iowa, for $89,184. That final table featured one of our reporters for this weekend, Molly Mossey. He’s also good for table talk. After an old rival rivered him at a livestreamed final table years ago, Ahmed shook his head and said: “Same old Liu.”
Jason Sell — The Short-Stack Comeback
Jason Sell owns one of the better comeback stories on the Midwest circuit. At the 2014 Mid-States Poker Tour stop at Ho-Chunk Gaming in Wisconsin, he started the final day with just 14 big blinds. He doubled with queen-nine against ace-king on the third hand and never looked back, beating 2012 WSOP National Championship runner-up Nik Stone heads-up for the title and $97,539.
Jeremy Thury — The Bubble Buster
At the record-setting RPT Casino State Championship in St. Michael, North Dakota, the largest poker tournament in state history with 1,655 entries, Jeremy Thury provided the most memorable bubble moment. With one player left to bust before Day 2, Thury shoved from the big blind over a raise from Kevin Clyde and told him, “I know you want to bag.” Clyde went deep in the tank with pocket queens before calling. Thury had kings. They held, and Thury bagged the Day 1f chip lead.
Kevin Berthelsen — The Stack Builder
If there’s a chip-lead chart at the end of the night, Kevin Berthelsen has a habit of being near the top of it. Berthelsen has bagged the chip lead in major events in the Midwest multiple times, so we will be watching for his stack to climb early.
Stay tuned throughout the day for updates on these players and the rest of the field as the Roughrider Poker Tour continues.
