Poker Unclogged

August is a lazy month.

The kids are off school, a lot of Europe's governments are in recess and it is silly season for the newspapers.

Some may argue it is the perfect time to play poker – it can be relaxing, it can take your mind off work and it can be a way of funding trips to the slide park.

However, irritating members of the non-poker playing community tend to become a little prickly at the suggestion that Hold 'em is a valid form of vacation. They see holidays as a time to expand horizons, explore the great outdoors and generally fill your time with activities that people from TV/adjacent tents/Hell have told them are meaningful.

Therefore, throughout August, Poker Unclogged will be offering a once-a-week guide to players who have found themselves outside of the normal, nurturing bio-sphere that is a casino.

We'll start with tips for one of the most challenging scenarios for a master of the felt:

A visit to an art gallery.

First of all, draw on the reserves of patience that have seen you through the darkest hours at the tables, those times when your hole cards are a paint free zone.

You're going to need them.

You'll hate a fair proportion of the art and the place will feel like it is designed to discourage fun.

In a way, it is.

However, if you have ever lit a Cuban and chuckled at Larry's framed picture of dogs playing poker, then allow us to suggest other card-playing classics, some of which were not designed to be displayed in the bathroom.

Caravaggio's The Cardsharps.

He would have been a God-send at the poker tables: hugely self destructive, he only just managed to spill more paint than blood. The painting is a classic of the innocent out of his depth.

Juan Gris - Glass of Beer and Playing Cards

Less straightforward than it sounds, this Cubist painting will hone your powers of observation and as you try to spot the playing cards

William Hogarth – Scene in a Gaming House.

Possibly sneak off to view this one. A satirical work, it is not going to convince the uninitiated that poker should be an Olympic event.

Jean-Simeon Chardin –The House of Cards.

Far more respectable and infinitely more dull. Tell your family that most online pros looks like this fresh-cheeked nobleman.

Henri de Toulouse Lautrec – The Card Players.

A classic.

Feel free to point out to unenlightened bystanders that this is dogs playing poker but aimed at those with upper middle class aspirations – they'll love you for it. The only difference is that prints of this one hang in loos, not toilets.

Hendrick Sorgh – A Woman Playing Cards with Two Peasants.

You'll wish everyone you meet in casinos had the same generosity of spirit as these three plebeians.

So, we think you now have enough back up to survive crossing the threshold of a house of culture without dialling the trauma team.

Hopefully, your appreciation of paintings will enable you meet new people, chat about the evolution of styles and treat a few of them to a master class in the dark arts of poker.