With a veritable smorgasbord of mixed games on offer at next year’s Irish Open, there is certain to be a lot of interest around the debut of Sviten Special. This fast-paced, exciting variant – which combines elements of both Five Card Omaha and Five Card Draw – has a lot of fans in Scandinavia but it’s only in the last few years that it’s started gaining traction in other regions.
History of Sviten Special
The variant was invented in 2004 by Swedish pro Anders “Bengan” Bengtsson at his poker club in Stockholm. One night, with just four players left at the table, Bengan suggested a mixed game combining Omaha and Five Card Draw. It was a hit right away and the variant soon became a club favourite. From the Sviten Club, the game swiftly spread across Sweden with visiting Finns then taking the game back home to play at poker clubs and private games. Once the variant was taken up by the Cash Game Festival (and later The Festival Series), it spread rapidly across Europe and is now a staple in poker hotspots like Malta. It even made its debut at the WSOPC in Tallinn in August but the 2026 Irish Open will mark the first time that Sviten Special has made its way onto the schedule of a mainstream festival in Ireland.
How to play
Sviten Special is a five-card, split-pot game, where one half of the pot goes to the best Pot Limit Omaha hand, and the other to the best Five-Card Draw hand. It’s similar to Drawmaha but with one essential twist – the “One Open rule states that If a player chooses to only discard one card, then they get options. The dealer will present them with one face-up card which they can accept or refuse. If they refuse it, then they get the next card dealt face down. If the player is discarding two or more cards, there are no special rules.
As Sviten Special is a split pot game, you have to choose your starting hands with care. Ideally you want a hand that has the possibility of scooping both halves of the pot but, at the very least, you want to start with hands that have a high chance of winning half the pot.
The best hands to start with include straights and two pairs, as these are already strong draw hands and have the potential to win the Omaha as well. Sviten experts argue that the best strategy is to try and start with as good a draw hand as possible; with only one drawing round, it’s likely that the best drawing hand will still be winning after the draw has been completed.
Swedish Friend of the Irish Open Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk has been playing Sviten Special virtually since it was invented and is arguably the main reason it has become well-known outside of Scandinavia. He has championed the variant at both the Cash Game Festival and The Festival Series. He also has a splendid personal track record in the discipline including winning the Sviten Special event at The Festival Weekend in July and becoming Sweden’s Sviten Special Champion back in 2015.
He said: “I’m very proud to have been an ambassador for Sviten Special. It’s a really popular home game in Finland, Malta and Estonia and is now also played at quite a few casinos such as Portomaso in St Julians and Olympic in Tallinn. When I taught the game to some Canadians from PokerListings, they then wrote an article about it called ‘Sviten Special, the Greatest Game Ever!’ And they’re not wrong!
“I am really excited it’s being introduced at the Irish Open next year. I know players are going to absolutely love it and I’m so proud to have played a part in increasing its popularity.”
The €350 Sviten Special Championship – Event 12 on next year’s schedule – kicks off at 2pm on March 27th. Players will get a 30,000 starting
