After three days of motion on the felt right here in lovely Billings, Montana the 2025 RPT Montana State Poker Championship has formally come to an finish with Dan Burcham claiming victory to seize his career-best rating of $29,000 together with the RPT bracelet.
The ninth version of the event attracted 283 entries, producing a prize pool of $148,575. After a heads-up deal, Burcham defeated Andrew Hilleren to win the title, one thing that meant extra to him than the cash.
“The cash is good, I am not going to lie,” Burcham advised PokerNews following his win. “I get lots of my self-worth from my friends pondering I did effectively at one thing. It is a lot of validation that I can hold with the perfect gamers in Montana. It means quite a bit to me”.
2025 RPT Montana State Poker Championship Remaining Desk Outcomes
* Denotes heads-up deal
Navigating Variance
When requested how he was feeling after the largest win of his life, Burchman responded, “Fairly surreal, truly. It has been one I needed to win for a few years. I have been having some run unhealthy, truly sort of emotional.”
He went on to speak about coping with the ups and downs of event poker. Main as much as this weekend he had been experiencing a very powerful string of run-bad and was contemplating taking a while off after this occasion.
He talked about taking “unhealthy beat after unhealthy beat, sort of beating me down, making me surprise if I used to be truly even good on the sport. I began to query it, however I simply saved trudging alongside, learning, and attempting to get higher. So the validation does quite a bit for me.”
Hometown Hero
Burcham was surrounded by associates on the rail who had been desperate to greet him as the ultimate card fell on the river in what proved to be an thrilling heads-up duel. He has been part of the Montana poker scene for a very long time, which is a really tight-knit group.
“I grew up right here, just a little city known as Hardin, about an hour away. I grew up there till I used to be 18, moved to Billings for school and have simply been right here ever since.”
Burcham was requested if it was additional particular to win an occasion like this in his dwelling state surrounded by his friends. He replied, “Completely. I imply, Wade owns the Seat Open domestically, so he got here right down to help. I’ve all my associates who came to visit simply to rail for me. It is just a little small native factor, however they got here down and spent the time, so it means quite a bit to me.”
Not solely was the popularity from his group of associates and acquaintances necessary, but it surely was additionally a private redemption story. Two years in the past, I obtained third on the similar occasion for $14,000. That is my greatest rating by quite a bit.”
When requested whether or not he was nonetheless contemplating taking a while off, Burcham commented, “Possibly not now. I would parlay this and go right down to the World Sequence of Poker. I’ve by no means performed poker outdoors of Billings earlier than, so I would go attempt one thing there.”
