On Thursday, Lock Poker officially jumped ship from the Merge Gaming Network to the Cake Poker Network, which is now officially being re-branded the Revolution Gaming Network. The move was originally announced earlier this monthand a Lock Poker representative told PocketFives on Thursday that the transition had gone “perfectly,” with no major hiccups reported.

One member of the PocketFives community noted that when he logged into Lock Poker on Thursday, he was immediately prompted to re-download the software. After the installation process was complete, he logged in using his existing e-mail address and password. Lock’s new software then asked him to select a user name and, upon finishing the process, he told PocketFives, “The lobby itself has a Lock-like feel, but with the current Cake games and currently looks like a mix of Lock and Cake (with Lock colors, but a Cake interface).”

Lock’s dot-eu website already notes that it is “a member of the Revolution Gaming network of sites.”

The move of Lock Poker from Merge to Revolution appears to have had quite an impact already. According to the traffic watchdog PokerScout, at the time of writing, which is around 3:30pm ET on Thursday, the Merge Gaming Network sans Lock Poker has 836 real money ring game players logged in, about half of its seven-day running average of 1,580.

Contrastingly, the Revolution Network has 1,079 cash game players logged in, double its seven-day running average of 590. Both sites take U.S. players, although PocketFives does not recommend signing up for U.S.-facing rake-based sites, as we feel your money could be at risk. Instead, we recommend playing on free-play sites like HogWild Pokeror subscription-based sites like FaceUp Gaming.

What traffic changes will we expect to see in the coming days on Revolution Gaming? PokerScout’s Dan Stewart told PocketFives, “I would expect to see a more notable difference on Cake in terms of their numbers going up as opposed to Merge’s numbers going down. If you take a certain number of players from a larger network and transfer them to a smaller network, the impact on the smaller network, percentage-wise, will be greater.”

In a thread in the Poker Sites forum, PocketFives members making the transition to Revolution Gaming today shared their stories. One poster from Idaho wrote that the process was quite simple: “Had a relatively easy transition to the new Lock with a Mac. Just uploaded the new version and deleted the old version. I had to create a new screen name and my funds are still intact. No time now, but will have to see if my HUD still works later tonight.”

Players with Macs reported scattered issues trying to download the new Revolution Gaming software. One person who successfully managed to do so from Texas critiqued, “From what I see, the software is not that bad and it has a majority of the bells and whistles. Lobby is pretty weak sauce though. Never played on Cake before, so it’s all pretty new. Honestly don’t give a rat’s ass about software – if the cashouts are fast and customer service is on the ball, then we are all good. Better not be 3-4 month cashouts like Cake.”

Lock officials have told PocketFives that the site’s cashier will remain intact. Players can reportedly retain their existing Lock Poker screen names as long as the name is not already in use on the Cake Poker Network.

Meanwhile, Revolution officials were busy changing tournament schedules following the arrival of Lock. The reaction from the PocketFives community to that was largely mixed, with one Texan observing, “Not loving the schedule, but it doesn’t look too bad, especially if this is just a starting point. The diminished guarantees are disappointing, but being able to play higher volume will mostly make up for it.”

Another poster rather grimly weighed, “These guarantees suck and Merge is going to have to lower theirs as well. Call me a pessimist, but I’m not seeing this as a good thing.”

We’ll keep you posted on the latest poker news right here on PocketFives.