33 days left to Cash Game Festival London
February 26, 201629 days to London – Meet Swedish player Andreas Löf Nilsson
March 1, 2016During Cash Game Festival we strive to introduce and try new versions of poker so that the game evolves also in a live environment at casinos around the world and not only in your normal home game. At our stop in Aspers Casino, one favourite game will for sure be Sviten Special. If you haven’t played it before, here are the rules:
Sviten Special – (Drawmaha) Rules
This is a poker variant that originated in the legendary poker club Sviten in downtown Stockholm, Sweden somewhere in 2005. The main creator being one of the managers there, Anders bengtsson and the main purpose of the game was to create more variance, fun and action into the game of poker compared with regular Omaha or Texas Hold’em
In short, the game is cross between five-card draw poker and 5C Pot Limit Omaha. Thus this game is a split game whereas the pot is being split between the best five-card hand and the best Omaha hand. So yes, Sviten Special guarantees action and is normally played quite aggressively.
A standard international 52-card deck is used. The optimum number of players is 5 or 6. It is possible for up to 9 to play, but then you often have to recycle cards discarded by the earlier players to be drawn by others.
As in any form of poker, the cards are shuffled and cut. The structure when it comes to blinds, order of betting and the way the communal cards are dealt are identical to ordinary Texas Hold’em and Omaha except that there are NO burn cards used.
Rules:
1) After small and big blind is posted the dealer deals five cards to each player, and then there is the first betting round.
2) Dealer deals a three-card flop face up for the table and then there is the second betting round.
3) After the second betting round, each player can discard any number of cards – from 0 to 5. ONCE all players (in seating order) have declared the number of cards and which cards they want to change they will receive an equal number of replacement cards from the dealer, as in five card draw poker. In the case a player chose to discard 1 card then a special rule kicks in. We call it “One Open”- One Open is dealt the following, the dealer gives the card in order open faced to the player in question who then has the option to either a) accept that card which now all player has seen and can estimate the players hand strength based on or b) decline that card upon which the dealer mucks the card and deliver the next card in order face down to the player in question. Once all players discarded cards has been sorted out the dealers deals the turn card for the table face up and then there is the third betting round
4) Dealer deals a river card face up for the table and then there is the fourth and last betting round.
5) Show down
If any betting round results in all players but one folding, the last surviving player immediately takes the pot without showing any cards, and this ends the hand.
If more than one player survives the final round of betting, all surviving players show their cards, and the pot is split between:
- The best five-card poker hand (considering only the five cards held by the player)
- The best Omaha hand, formed of exactly two of the players cards and exactly three of the face up cards on the table.
Normal poker hand ranking applies. It is of course possible for the same player to win on both criteria, and take the whole pot. However, it is common for the pot to be split.
