The opening flights of the 2015 World Poker Tour (WPT) Borgata Poker Open Main Event in Atlantic City are complete and the survivors from each are ready to combine into a single field today for Day 2. Sofia Lövgren came out of Day 1B as the chip leader both of her flight and of the overall tournament with 275,000 chips.
Later starting flights are almost always larger than earlier ones and this tournament has been no exception. Day 1A saw 292 players enter, but that number more than doubled to 697 yesterday as players flocked to the Borgata. The total field of 989 is quite solid, but is still a far cry from last year’s total of 1,226. We can’t put our finger on why there was such a drop-off, but it could just be that the Borgata Poker Open is a microcosm of the decline of Atlantic City as a whole. Who knows.
Lövgren, an 888poker sponsored pro, does not have much of a live tournament resume of which to speak, which is not necessarily a shock for a young, internet-focused poker player. She does have seven World Series of Poker cashes and a WPT cash to her credit, but only $170,324 in lifetime winnings.
Like many of us, Lövgren got her start in poker betting just a few cents at a time, though unlike most of us, she continued climbing the ranks, finding success at higher and higher stakes. In a 2012 interview with PokerNews, when she was just 22 and already a member of Team PKR, Lövgren described her start in poker, saying, “I won several 30-cent prizes in free-roll tournaments. When I had $2.00, I started to play the lowest micro-level cash games and built a bankroll from that. After a year and a half, I had $4,000 in my bankroll and played NL$50 constantly winning.”
She then lost most of her money in 2008, because the site she played on shut down after a cheating scandal, so she started all over again on PKR with just $50. She continued:
I used strict bankroll management, put in a lot of hours and after another year, I had $60,000 in my bankroll. This was encouraging and I decided to try playing poker full time after finishing high school. After another year grinding mid-stake cash games, PKR contacted me and I was given the opportunity to be a Team Pro in 2010.
And now she’s a poker pro and leading a WPT event going into Day 2.
Tuesday’s action will begin at noon ET in Atlantic City.
2015 World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open Main Event – Day 1B Chip Leaders
1. Sofia Lövgren – 275,000
2. James Dorrance – 224,700
3. Jeff Hobrecker – 191,900
4. Aaron Kweskin – 165,700
5. Sang Kim – 155,000
6. Glenn Lafaye – 138,900
7. Andre Crooks – 135,200
8. Yervand Boyadjian – 124,300
9. Brian Green – 120,000
10. Victor Figueroa – 120,000
2015 World Poker Tour Borgata Poker Open Main Event – Combed Day 1 Chip Leaders
1. Sofia Lövgren – 275,000
2. James Dorrance – 224,700
3. Jeff Hobrecker – 191,900
4. Shannon Shorr – 189,000
5. Cong Pham – 172,800
6. Maurice Hawkins – 172,200
7. Paul Volpe – 171,900
8. Yong Feng – 170,600
9. Aaron Kweskin – 165,700
10. Sang Kim – 155,000
