The Festival Sviten Special Weekend Breaks Its Personal Best for Total Entrants in a Sviten Tournament

What is Sviten Special?

Anders “Bengan” Bengtsson created the game at the Sviten Club in Stockholm in the mid-2000s by combining five-card draw and Pot Limit Omaha. It became an instant success with the players. 

Each player receives five cards. A round of betting ensues preflop, before players bet again on the flop. This is where the draw aspect comes in. Players can discard any number of cards from their hand.  If they draw one, it will be dealt face up. The player can decline the face-up card, and they get a second one face down. Two through five draws are all face down. 

Photo Credit: Mairo Toom

Another round of betting ensues on the turn and river, providing action continues. At the end of the hand, half the pot is awarded to the best draw hand, which is the five cards in hand, and the other half is awarded to the best PLO hand, which will be with two cards on the hand and three from the board. 

This interesting dynamic makes for some interesting and nuanced spots. Players can scoop the pot by having the best of both hands. For example, you could have a straight in hand and on the board. If no one can beat either straight, you scoop the pot. 

To learn more about this incredibly interesting and nuanced game, click here. 

How The Weekend Started

The weekend started in true Festival fashion on a Wednesday the 16th of July, with free roll satellites to wet the appetite and gain some early entrants into the €100 Sviten Special Main Event. 

The following day marked the opening tournament of the event, the €50 Festival Weekend Sviten Special Opener, which drew 85 total entrants to the cozy Chesterfield Poker Club tables. 

The guaranteed €2,000 prize pool was smashed, and the final total prize pool was confirmed to be €3,710.25 when registration closed and the floor ran the numbers. 

Photo Credit: Mairo Toom

The Opener ran into the wee hours of the morning, so much so that the event resulted in a 10-way ICM chop. The field was awarded a €100 ticket to the Sviten Special Main Event the following day to compensate for the tournament not running down to its natural conclusion.

Gia Carnestrom of Sweden had the most chips of the final 10, meaning she came away with the victory and the highest share of the prize pool. 

She has recorded $27,603 in live tournament earnings according to Hendon Mob. She has cashed at two Festival tournaments before this, both of which came in Malta last year in the €250 Sviten Special, where she finished 5th for €580, before winning the €250 Big O tournament for €3,506.

Payouts

Place	Player	Nationality	Payout
1	Gia Carnestrom		€660
2	Haik Tougu		€482
3	Waldemar Sadowski		€411
4	Kaidar Viikman		€401
5	“Mr Mork”		€348
6	Christian Emmertz		€343
7	“Tompson”		€308
8	Joern Inge Hvall		€273
9	Jon Holtan Overbo		€210
10	“Andres ARO”		€194
11	“Anonymous”		€80

The €100 Sviten Special Main Event Day 1

The €100 Sviten Special Main Event saw the record for the highest total number of entrants fall by the wayside for a Sviten tournament at The Festival. A field of 122 total entrants took to the tables in pursuit of Sviten Special Main Event glory, which eclipsed The Festival Series’s previous best turn out.

Photo Credit: Mairo Toom

The €10,000 was just about passed, with the final prize pool confirmed to be €10,650. The tournament proved to be such a hit that The Chesterfield Poker Club didn’t have a spare table to run the scheduled €20 No Limit Hold’em tournament, which just goes to show how popular this game is becoming. 

The field was whittled down to two tables of six apiece by the end of play for Day 1, and the remaining players were all in the money. 

The €100 Sviten Special Main Event Day 2 

The final day saw action resume at 2.30 p.m. local time, with Estonian native Enri Orav clear at the top of the chip counts. 

Start of Day 2 Chip Counts 

Place	Player	Country	Chip Count
1	Enri Orav		965,000
2	Paolo Bortolon		585,000
3	Ville Keranen		530,000
4	Anna Astahova		440,000
5	“MrMork”		335,000
6	Bjorn-Olav Oeverboe		205,000
7	Martin Smith		175,000
8	“ei ole anonuumne”		135,000
9	Eero Westerlund		100,000
10	Taavi Tamm		90,000
11	Olav Oeverboe		85,000
12	Angelica Andersson		15,000

Orav’s chiplead had dissipated by the time the first break was reached, and final table play was in full swing. Anna Astahova, another Estonian national, fell in eighth place and just missed out on a spot at the final table. 

The stacks were shallow throughout the day’s play, due to the blinds increasing more readily than pot scooping was occurring. 

Ultimately, three-handed play was reached when the longtime chip leader Orav departed in fourth. That left Norweigan Bjorn-Olav Oeverboe, Finnish national Ville Keranen and Paolo Bortolon, who was representing the home team. 

Photo Credit: Mairo Toom

Bortolon was once rivalling Orav for the chip lead, but he was on the downtrend and ended up filling the third place spot. 

The heads-up battle between Oeverboe and Keranen lasted around 40-minutes, and was a fairly back and forth affair. Keranen found a solid run of cards and took down some raised pots with some aggressive betting in position to whittle down the stack of Oeverboe and maximising his chances of winning the full pot more often to seal the deal.

Keranen emerged victorious and said after his victory that at one point he was down to “half a big blind”, which is a great achievement considering the chop-pot nature. 

Photo Credit: Mairo Toom

€250 Sviten Special High Roller

The final event was the biggest buy-in of the weekend, in the form of the €250 Sviten Special High Roller. 

A field of 54 total entrants bought into the tournament, which generated a total prize pool of €12,004, a big increase on the €7,500 guarantee, which again showcases the popularity of this growing poker variant. 

Only 7 found the money due to the smaller field size. Estonian National Taivo Egel was the unfortunate victim of the bubble, and Opener Winner Carnestrom, Festival regulars Barrie Dear and Sascha Manns are just a few of the names that failed to find the money. 

Photo Credit: Mairo Toom

Finnish national Sami Saamanen came into final table play with a sizeable chip lead over the remaining players. Swede Ari Hissa and Martin Smith, who wrote a seminal book on Sviten titled Pot Limit Sviten Special: A European Version of Drawmaha, were the first departures. 

The Festvial Founder Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk was in contention for his first cash of The Festival Weekend, and he was firmly on the up during the final frames.

Von Zweigbergk claimed the last of Hissa’s chips as he scooped the pot with trips in hand, and had the board locked up. Hissa drew one and couldn’t make a flush to best The Boss’s draw hand. 

Michal Zielinski, a Sviten newcomer up until this Festival Weekend, was next to depart. He couldn’t get much going at the final table, and he ended up being a victim of the blinds more than anything. He was stacked by Estonian Tarev Kralla in a three-way pot as he made a flush on the board and had two pair in hand. 

Photo Credit: Mairo Toom

Kralla navigated short-stack play well, and brought himself back into contention by winning the previously mentioned three-way pot. He won a few pots preflop and on the flop. 

However, he was dispatched in a three-way pot himself, as Von Zweigbergk had a straight in the hand and on the board. His nine-high straight doubled as a seven-high straight on the board, coolering Kralla’s hand holding of two pair. 

Photo Credit: Mairo Toom

This left Von Zweigbergk and Saamanen heads-up for the title, and both were in good spirits and enjoying their poker, a sentiment that is common place in Festival Series stops. 

Ultimately, Von Zweigbergk took down the title after around 15 minutes of heads-up play. He made a flush in hand after drawing one and had trips on the board to scoop up the pot and the final title of the weekend. 

For Von Zweigbergk, this was the perfect way to cap off what has been another incredibly successful stop for The Festival, and now all roads lead to the next stop in Malta in September, and once again, Sviten will be on the menu. 

Photo Credit: Mairo Toom

Can The Festival continue to grow and smash personal and global records? Only time will tell, but the team has many reasons to be optimistic about the future given the successes of the Rozvadov stop in June and this recent weekend in Tallinn. 

Payouts

Place	Player	Nationality	Payout
1	Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk		€3,500 + €1,600 Package to Malta
2	Sami Saamanen		€2,650
3	Karev Tralla		€1,850
4	Michal Zielinski		€1,450
5	Ari Hissa		€1,100
6	“anonymous”		€850
7	Martin Smith		€604