If you’ve got a suitable garage, it’s an ideal venue for poker nights. You can be out of the way of the rest of the family, and make as much or as little noise as you like. So what do you need to do? A reliable table is a must – but don’t worry if you don’t have a green baize-topped table. You can buy green baize and simply drop it over the top, like a tablecloth.

Make sure there’s enough light – and no mirrors or windows that will allow peeking at people’s hands. There’s no need to go overboard on the hospitality – people have come to play, not eat. It’s quite acceptable to ask your pals to bring their own choice of drink. So now, you just have to decide which poker game you’re going to play. And there’s a lot of choice! Because Texas Hold’em is the most popular game in online casinos, it’s also the first game that a lot of people learn. In fact, many people think that Hold’em IS poker, not realising that are many variants of the game, and that some are so different, you have to forget what you learned when playing Hold’em, in order to play the new game. For example, Seven Card Stud poker. This classic poker version used to be widely played – and now there’s a revival of interest. Seven Card Stud involves more strategic thinking than Hold’em and its fans claim it’s a far more challenging game, with the perfect mix of luck and skill. It’s also popular with keen players, as a High Rollers Poker game. There are “Hi” and “Lo” versions of Seven Card, and just as Hold’em has Omaha, Seven Card has many variants. And if you really want to tune up your brain cells, try Pai Gow poker, sometimes called double hand poker, which is completely different from Hold’em or Seven Card.