This page is based on a contribution from Jonas Uebel.
Sviten Special is a poker variant that originated in the legendary poker club Sviten in Stockholm, Sweden. Jonas Uebel reports that it has become very popular in the Nordic countries in general and in Stockholm in particular. It is a cross between five-card draw poker and Omaha, the pot being split between the best five-card hand and the best Omaha hand. 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.
Players agree the size of the small and big blinds, and the betting limits. Sviten Special is preferably, and in its original format, played as pot limit.
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.
The player to the dealer's left places the small blind and the player to the small blind's left places the big blind. The dealer then deals five cards to each player, and there is a betting round, beginning with the player to the left of the big blind.
The dealer then burns one card and deals a three-card flop face up to the table. There is a second round of betting in which the player to the left of the dealer acts first.
After the second betting round, each player can discard any number of cards - from zero to five - and receives an equal number of replacement cards from the dealer, as in five card draw poker. If the deck runs out at this point the muck (consisting of earlier players' discards, the burn card, and the cards of any players who folded in the first betting round) is shuffled to form a new deck from which to deal replacement cards to the later players.
The dealer burns one card and deals one card (the turn card) face up to the table. There is a third round of betting beginning with the player to the left of the dealer.
Finally the dealer deals a fifth face up card (the river) to the table, and there is a fourth round of betting beginning with the player to the left of the dealer.
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:
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.
A popular variation of Sviten Special allows an extra possibility when exchanging cards. If you decide to exchange only one card, you can ask the dealer to give you a replacement card face up. You can either accept this card, which everyone has seen, or reject it and ask the dealer to deal you another card face down, which you must then accept.
Sviten Special is most popular to play as pot limit and in cash games. However, there have been successful tournaments of Sviten Special and even some players that like to play it as no limit (but then the game tends to become quite crazy).