PokerWorks

Do you remember how you got into poker? If I had to guess, it was either through a home game, like me, or a TV, like 3 million others.

This was before I had kids, of course, but on Thursday nights, we got together and played Texas Holdem. I was bad at first — I used to love to chase inside straight draws — but I got better, and pretty soon, I was leaving with more money than I brought. Which usually meant I left with $2 profit after keeping my original $5. I always wondered why "High Stakes Poker" didn't stop by our house to film us first.

Anyway, TV contributed to my love for poker in a way, too, as the guys who first put the home game together got into it by watching the World Poker Tour. I'm guessing almost all, therefore, who got into poker in some way owe it to the fact that channels began showing it on TV all the time.

Now there's a glut of TV shows, of course, but that doesn't mean I'm not in the mood to watch good poker on a good channel. I still watch the WSOP and High Stakes Poker and now I'll be watching PokerStars' new North American Poker Tour on ESPN 2.

PokerStars announced last week that the new tour's stops, including those at the Venetian this week, will be televised starting in April. Pretty exciting news, especially now that PokerStars announced the next stop in the tour is the Mohegan Sun in Connecticut. That will involve 38 poker events in 16 days, with a $5,000 buy-in to the Main Event and a $10,000 bounty shootout.

If you want to take part — and I know you do, even beyond just watching it on TV — you can on the cheap. PokerStars is hosting multi-step qualifying tournaments, as the site seems to do for just about every big tournament in the world. If there's any PokerStars' poker tour you want to join, you can bet the site has a way for you to get there cheaply - as long as you can win your way in.

Speaking of satellites, 888.com/Pacific Poker has eight ways for you to get to the World Series of Poker. In the next three months, 888.com will hand out 41 WSOP packages worth $15,000 and another 47 worth $5,000

These include being one of four players to play the highest amount of raked hands in one month. The first two will get the $15,000 package, and the next two will be $5,000 packages. You can also earn the largest number of points to get a ticket, recruit the most friends to play on the site or even make the best YouTube video as to why you deserve to go to the WSOP.

There are other ways as well. If you want to take part, download Pacific Poker right here, and you'll get a great bonus for doing so. This offer, of course, is open and available for practically every poker room in the Internet, because PokerWorks has you covered for the best online poker room reviews, bonuses, and news.

Probably the biggest poker events besides the World Series of Poker would be the World Poker Tour, and PartyPoker has a way to get you there. Yep, on the cheap - I like that saying.

Anyway, PartyPoker's offering $1 million in tournament packages for WPT events taking place in 2010. These $15,000 packages are available through weekly packages that continue through May 30.

Or you can qualify for free through the PartyPoker WPT daily freerolls. The price is right for those freerolls!  I know. I hate that cliche too. I think you hear it on practically every late-night infomercial. But in this case it's so true I couldn't help it. Forgive me. I promise the next time I get A-A it'll get cracked, OK?

PartyPoker's even throwing some bonus cash in for the events. When you win, you'll win an extra $500,000, and if someone else wins who qualified, you'll share $500,000 if you also qualified for that event.

If you think that's improbable, keep in mind that PartyPoker had two of its qualifiers for the Aussie Millions tournament finish first and second in the whole thing. So, no, it's not even remotely impossible.

There are lots of ways to enter, through step tournaments or satellites, but you can also buy in directly for $88, and that will get you into the $750 + $50 WPT Satellite that kicks off every Sunday. One out of every 20 players will win a $15,000 package.

If you download Full Tilt Poker, you'll be treated to a pretty good show, and no, I'm not talking about the premier of Season 6 of "High Stakes Poker" on Valentine's Day (which thrilled my wife) or the upcoming PokerStars tour.

I'm talking about Isildur1. Yep, he's back.

He was back on Full Tilt last week, winning hundreds of thousands and then, of course, dumping more than a million in one night. I love that guy. He's still up half a million from what I've read at last count.

If you want to play with Isildur1, you can get your start by downloading Full Tilt Poker here, then playing $1,000 Freerolls on the site exclusive to PokerWorks players. You need to make a $50 deposit at least, a day prior to the tournaments. Check back here for more freerolls.

If you do win, you'll have enough of a bankroll to build it up to the levels of Isildur1, I'm sure.

But if you don't have enough to compete with Isildur1 - and it's all right, neither do I just yet - you can build your bankroll with a bunch of freerolls offered by PokerWorks in partnerships with several poker sites. These sites include Full Tilt, Party Poker, Betfred, Carbon and Winner Poker.

Finally, I was logging on to play another session of Rush Poker - shocking, I know - and I discovered a new bonus being offered by Full Tilt. You can earn at least $50 if you accept your offer by March 14.

This offer is open to anyone, too. You don't have to deposit anything to get the offer, though you do have to be a real money player, so if you're not yet, well, what are you waiting for?

Isildur1 is waiting.