The 2026 Irish Poker Open has just wrapped up on the Emerald Isle, writing another chapter in the Irish poker history books. While most eyes were on the prestigious €1,150 Main Event, this year’s festival featured several new events, one of which was Sviten. As so often is the case with this Swedish-native game, one certain poker entrepreneur played a key role in Sviten’s debut during the longest-running poker tournament in the world outside of Vegas. The poker.pro journalist Christoffer Karlén has decided to recap the Sviten tournament that was played during the Irish Poker Open, and find out what’s next on the Sviten calendar.
Watson Takes the Trophy Back to Texas
There is the slightest chance that this reporter is a tad biased when making the claim that there is no other live poker tournament like the Irish Poker Open. On the other hand, that is what everyone says, and one must admit that the event embodies the saying, “More than just a poker tournament.” The festival culminated with Romania’s Narcis-Gabriel Nedelcu taking home the record-breaking €1,150 Main Event for €336,790, joining the hall of fame of previous Irish Poker Open Main Event winners.
This poker.pro journalist was actually on-site in Dublin, experiencing “The Craig” firsthand. Seeing Nedelcu lift the trophy was indeed a big moment, but it was not the pinnacle for this blonde Swede. No, the highlight from a Scandinavian standpoint actually happened the second day of the festival, when the €350 Sviten Special Championship was played.
This isn’t the first time the poker.pro editorial office has declared its love for Sviten Special. The game was founded in Sweden by Anders “Bengan” Bengtsson in the early 2000’s, and it was only played on Swedish soil for some time. That was until one of poker’s biggest entrepreneurs, Martin “Franke” von Zweigbergk, began his soul mission of spreading the game across Europe. Mainly through his The Festival series, he has introduced the PLO/Five-Card Draw hybrid of a game to crowds in Malta, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, and many more countries. What’s more, the biggest poker operator in the Baltics, OlyBet, has also done their fair share of work spreading the game, much thanks to Tournament Director Teresa Nousainen. One major milestone for Sviten Special so far was when it was played as a certified WSOP Circuit Ring Event during the 2025 WSOP Circuit Tallinn.
Needless to say, the expectations were high for the game to be played in the mighty Royal Dublin Society, being a part of the legendary Irish Poker Open. This was, as previously mentioned, much thanks to Franke. Back in 2018, he introduced the game to the Irish crowd during the 2018 Cash Game Festival at JP Poker Card Club & Casino. His relationship with the owners of the Irish Poker Open, JP McCann and Paul O’Reilly, is thicker than heavy gravy, and thanks to their excellent collaboration, the aforementioned €350 Sviten Special Championship became a part of the 2026 Irish Poker Open schedule.
This poker.pro live journalist was given the honor to cover the tournament (perhaps thanks to the Swedish heritage). The tournament kicked off with Franke giving a short speech in which he expressed what it meant to him that Sviten had reached one of the biggest stages of live poker. Before delivering the legendary phrase “Shuffle up and deal,” Franke force-fed McCann and O’Reilly a 0% Guinness, and then, the players were off to the races. In an exclusive quote to poker.pro, Franke revealed his excitement over Sviten Special reaching more and more parts of the world:
“To be a driving force in making Sviten Special loved and played all around the globe is a great achievement, and it’s something that I’m very proud of. It’s hard to understand that what started in a small underground club in Stockholm is now reaching larger audiences than ever in Asia (APT) and the Irish Poker Open. It is really, really cool!”
The tournament was seeking to attract more than 131 entries; the current record for the world’s largest Sviten Special tournament in terms of field size, set during the 2025 Festival Bratislava. It didn’t quite get there, but 125 entries were still a respectable number, generating a €38,189 prize pool. When Finland’s Toomas Mäkikokko became the unfortunate bubble boy in eighteenth place, the remaining 17 players were all guaranteed a €600 min-cash.
Perhaps somewhat surprising, some of the most prominent Sviten Special players in the world – Franke, Riku Koivurinne, Jari Mähönen, Thor Morstol – didn’t make the money. That being said, there were still some big names left in the field, such as professional player/former PokerStars Ambassador Georgina “GGReggie” James, Swedish Sviten Special veteran Kristoffer Winterstein, and Mixed Games virtuoso Sascha Manns. It was Manns who had a firm grip of the tournament once the seven-handed final table was set, holding a decent chip lead. In second place was Winterstein, seeking to prove once and for all that Sviten Special still belongs to the Swedes.
Manns played to win, and during the earlier stages, he took a big spot against American Roderick Watson. It resulted in Watson scooping the massive pot, completely flipping the script and claiming the chip lead. He soon improved his stack even further when he knocked out Matteo Crapanzano (Sixth place, €1,990) and Manns (fifth place, €2,590) in the same hand. About an hour later, Winterstein was eliminated in fourth place for €3,360 by Christopher Adams. Three-handed play went on for hours; around 6:00 a.m. (the tournament’s fourteenth hour), Watson knocked out Martin Schauman in third place for €4,370, setting the stage for an all-American heads-up duel between himself and Hamilton.
Playing visually equal stacks, the two contestants made an ICM deal, and just two hands later, the tournament came to an end. Watson scooped the lot with a set of sixes on the board and a pair of sixes on the hand, and that settled it. Watson, who played his first-ever Sviten Special tournament, became the winner of the inaugural tournament.
In his winner’s interview, Roderick revealed he came to Dublin on the recommendation of two friends from the States:
“Two of my buddies from Texas invited me over because they came here last year and said it was a good experience, so I had to come check it out. It was actually my very-first Sviten Special tournament; it’s similar to Drawmaha back home, and I really love that game, so I wanted to give this a try.”
2026 Irish Poker Open – €350 Sviten Special Championship Final Table Results
| Place | Player | Country | Prize |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Roderick Watson | United States | €8,560 |
| 2 | Christopher Adams | United States | €7,360 |
| 3 |  Martin Schamaun | Switzerland | €4,370 |
| 4 |  Kristoffer Winterstein | Sweden | €3,360 |
| 5 |  Sascha Manns | Germany | €2,590 |
| 6 |  Matteo Crapanzano | Italy | €1,990 |
| 7 | Stefano Lagorio | Italy | €1,570 |
So, now that Sviten Special has conquered the Emerald Isle, it begs the question: What’s next? Sviten Special has spread like a virus the last couple of years, but it’s mostly been on European soil – until now. As previously hinted at in Franke’s quote, the game will soon debut in Asia, more specifically during the 2026 Asian Poker Tour (APT) Taipei. The festival will be held at Red Space Taipei, the official home of this year’s tour. While Franke deserves credit as being the person globalizing the game from the get-go, the person who deserves a round of applause for this is the previously named Koivurinne.
The Finnish Mixed Games enthusiast (and very successful player) attended the 2025 APT and befriended the organization and Neil Johnson (President of the Asian Poker Tour). Koivurinne was asked what game should be added to the 2026 APT schedule, and Sviten Special was his choice. In an exclusive interview with The Festival, Koivurinne elaborates on the process of getting the Swedish Frankenstein of a game on the 2026 APT Taipei schedule:
“Ever since first attending the Cash Game Festival almost ten years ago, I have simply loved Sviten Special as a poker format. It has everything I want in poker: the excitement of drawing, multiple strategic decisions, the drama of Omaha, and most importantly, the social aspect. Since those first Festivals, I have always tried to introduce Sviten Special to new people. Fast forward to last year, I had the chance to attend the Asian Poker Tour for the first time. During my time in Taipei, I was super impressed with the series and the number of mixed game tournaments offered there.
The tournaments were well organized, and I managed to grab a trophy on the very first tournament I ever played there. During that event, I kept thinking how amazing it would be to have Sviten Special as part of this event as well in the future. And as luck would have it, this year, I had the opportunity to give out suggestions for the APT mixed game calendar, and my game of choice was clear from the start. And here we are, flying to Taipei once again to play the very first Sviten Special tournament organized on the APT, and I couldn’t be more excited!”
- Read more: Sviten Special is going International!
Franke will accompany Koivurinne to Asia to show locals how a Swede masters Sviten Special. To think that Bengtsson invented the game in Stockholm all those years ago, and that the game will now be played 5,200 miles away from the Swedish capital, is difficult to grasp. One thing’s for certain, though: it’s one of the greatest poker games that there is, and without a doubt, the APT crowd will enjoy it just as much as the Irish community did.
