Celestial Poker / Sviten Special
Introduction
This Poker variant is a cross between
Five-card Draw and Omaha. Players are dealt five cards 2️⃣ each, and a there are five face
up shared cards on the table. After the first three shared cards (known 2️⃣ as the flop)
have been dealt, players can discard some of their hand cards and obtain replacements.
The pot is 2️⃣ split between the best five-card hand and the best Omaha hand. This mixture
of games guarantees action and is normally 2️⃣ played quite aggressively.
As reported by
Jonas Uebel, this game has become very popular in the Nordic countries under the name
2️⃣ Sviten Special, and is widely believed to have originated in 2004 in Anders Bengtsson's
legendary Sviten poker club in Stockholm, 2️⃣ as described for example on this festival
page. However I am told by Sebastién that an identical game was played 2️⃣ in French Canada
in the 1980's where it was known as Celestial Poker (or in French, Céleste). The
'festival page' 2️⃣ article also mentions that a similar game is played in the USA under
the rather clumsy name 'Drawmaha'. It may 2️⃣ well be that over the course of a quarter
century or more this same idea has arisen independently in several 2️⃣ widely separated
places.
Players, Cards and Stakes
A standard international 52-card deck is used. The
optimum number of players is 5 or 2️⃣ 6. It is possible for up to 9 to play, but then you
often have to recycle cards discarded by 2️⃣ the earlier players to be drawn by
others.
Players agree the size of the small and big blinds, and the betting 2️⃣ limits.
Sviten Special is preferably, and in its original format, played as pot limit.
Deal and
Betting
As in any form of 2️⃣ poker, the cards are shuffled and cut. The structure when it
comes to blinds, order of betting and the way 2️⃣ the communal cards are dealt are
identical to ordinary Texas Hold’em and Omaha.
The player to the dealer's left places
the 2️⃣ small blind and the player to the small blind's left places the big blind. The
dealer then deals five cards 2️⃣ to each player, and there is a betting round, beginning
with the player to the left of the big blind.
The 2️⃣ dealer then burns one card and deals
a three-card flop face up to the table. There is a second round 2️⃣ of betting in which the
player to the left of the dealer acts first.
After the second betting round, each
player 2️⃣ can discard any number of cards - from zero to five - and receives an equal
number of replacement cards 2️⃣ from the dealer, as in five card draw poker. If the deck
runs out at this point the muck (consisting 2️⃣ of earlier players' discards, the burn
card, and the cards of any players who folded in the first betting round) 2️⃣ is shuffled
to form a new deck from which to deal replacement cards to the later players.
The
dealer burns one 2️⃣ card and deals one card (the turn card) face up to the table. There is
a third round of betting 2️⃣ beginning with the player to the left of the dealer.
Finally
the dealer deals a fifth face up card (the river) 2️⃣ to the table, and there is a fourth
round of betting beginning with the player to the left of the 2️⃣ dealer.
The Showdown
If
any betting round results in all players but one folding, the last surviving player
immediately takes the pot 2️⃣ without showing any cards, and this ends the hand.
If more
than one player survives the final round of betting, all 2️⃣ surviving players show their
cards, and the pot is split between:
The best five-card poker hand (considering only
the five cards 2️⃣ held by the player)
The best Omaha hand, formed of exactly two of the
player's cards and exactly three of the 2️⃣ face up cards on the table.
Normal poker hand
ranking applies. It is of course possible for the same player to 2️⃣ win on both criteria,
and take the whole pot. However, it is common for the pot to be split.
Variations
A
popular 2️⃣ variation of Sviten Special allows an extra possibility when exchanging cards.
If you decide to exchange only one card, you 2️⃣ can ask the dealer to give you a
replacement card face up. You can either accept this card, which everyone 2️⃣ has seen, or
reject it and ask the dealer to deal you another card face down, which you must then
2️⃣ accept.
Sebastién describes three versions of the one-card exchange rule played in
Celestial Poker in Canada:
The player simply receives one replacement 2️⃣ card that is not
shown to the other players and has to accept it - i.e. the same as when 2️⃣ exchanging two
or more cards. This is rarely played. The player is dealt one card face up, which they
can 2️⃣ reject and take a face-down card in its place, the same as in the Sviten Special
variant above. The player 2️⃣ is dealt two cards face down, keeps one of them without
showing it, and discards the rejected card face up. 2️⃣ This third version is the most
popular.
Sviten Special is most popular to play as pot limit and in cash games.
2️⃣ However, there have been successful tournaments of Sviten Special and even some players
that like to play it as no 2️⃣ limit (but then the game tends to become quite
crazy).
Communist Pot is a Celestial Poker variation in which everyone at 2️⃣ the table has
to place an ante of 5× the big blind. There is no betting round after the first 2️⃣ 5 cards
are dealt: the dealer immediately deals the three-card flop. The game then continues in
the normal way.
There are 2️⃣ several Roll Your Own versions of Celestial Poker. The most
usual is for each player to reveal one of their 2️⃣ five cards when the turn card has been
dealt, before the third betting round, and a second when the river 2️⃣ card has been dealt,
before the final betting round.
