So what's the deal? I want all of the juicy dirt!

Quite ironic, considering at one point Lock was just a skin on the Cake network who used the Cake cashier for their financial transactions processing, and now Lock is actually buying the entire network, wtf ?!?!?!

The main question: what are Lock's plans about Cake's currently absolutely pathetic poker client 2.0? In the press release Lock claims to have outgrown Merge, but as far as I am concerned the Merge's poker client is head and shoulders above Cake's...

Also, does Lock really assume that most of its player base is going to follow them over to the tiny Cake network, or instead jump ship and create an account on one of numerous Merge skins?

What new incentives will Lock have to attempt to maintain at least some fraction of its current player base and try to attract new blood?

Does Lock plan to stay with the parasitic 'dealt-hand' RB method, or switch to the current industry standard of WC RB?

Lastly, which genius came up with 'revolution poker'? Surprised you didn't call it 'epic poker'...

umm, link?

http://www.gambling911.com/poker/off...er-050712.html

http://www.pokernewsdaily.com/lock-p...network-21692/

such an inconvenience having to move to a different merge skin at the end of the month just to avoid the crappy cake software.

Looking forward to hearing more details about the transition and plans.


Did see a new June promo up: http://lockpoker.eu/promos/ronin/

if lock does something with cake's crappy software, i think merge will shrivel up and die.

make a half decent tourney schedule and i will follow lock away from god awful merge.

viva la revolution!!!

The plan is for Lock to be able to actually make changes to software/games/etc I will be sticking with lock and seeing how it goes.. Really excited about this and them taking direct control.. Merge Blows.

Why everyone is everyone ripping on cake's software? It works fine for me so what don't you guys like about it?

Wouldn't Lock just keep their own software? Why would they downgrade to the crappy cake client? I have no problems with the Lock client. Doesn't always run as smooth as it probably could but it's serviceable. Please keep the Lock software!

^^The current Lock software is the Merge software. Lock has confirmed in one of the articles linked above that they will be using the Cake software when they make the switch, although the developers are said to be working on improvements.

The regular lock software isn't lock's software it is licensed from Merge I believe.

Oh, that sucks. In that case, I might not be on board. The cake software sucks balls.

Uncertain about the software but overall am optimistic about this. Really tired of the feeling that we COULD be getting better player rewards if not for network restrictions.

The whole LockOps thing was embarrassing for everyone in about 20 different ways and it really does feel as though Lock got fed up with not being able to do half of what they wanted to.

Last night I made a post that didn't make it up (2+2 issues) where I cracked "Bring back Ronin!!" And now I see that they really are. Haha. Awesome.

Hope traffic is okay and the Cake software isn't as bad as I remember it. But overall I think this change is more likely to lead to good things than bad. Competition is good. Merge is closeish to a complacent monopoly among US sites. So if Lock doesn't do so hot with traffic and software maybe it will at least push Merge to do better at this. Probably not...but you never know.

Interesting that Lock claims to have 40% of the players on Merge. That feels pretty high to me but if true then that helps their chances of doing okay in this. Although it is clear that many of those Lock players will just be staying at Merge via a different skin.

Also, LOL that Lock is already advertising Ronin. Probably against Merge's terms to do that. They are promoting an upcoming promo that breaks Merge's rules while they are still part of Merge. But Lock's attitude is all "Ummm, we're leaving anyway. So we will promote whatever we want now. Have a nice day. Kthxbye."

i kinda believe lock actually has 40% of the player pool. what leads me to believe it is them offering the lockops with 2 million in gtd's and keep in mind those mtts they offered were very big, if i recall correctly they were big as the maximus

No way Lock has 40% of the Merge active traffic. That number has got to be closer to 25-30%.

I will not continue playing on Lock as the Cake poker client is horrible.

Reading into the LockOps thing only gets you so far. I didn't watch it too closely but I think those were rebuy tournaments they were setting up, right? Maximus were not for the most part. A $100k guarantee for a $200 rebuy is WAY different than a $100k guarantee for a $200 single-entry tournament. Looked like Lock was essentially setting up some higher-roller type tourneys with smaller fields. But maybe I'm wrong on that. You guys who followed those tourneys more closely can let me know.

Certainly there is SOME validity to that aspect though. They weren't terribly likely to offer big guarantees if they only have 21 players on the whole site with an average of $3.65 in their accounts obviously.


And there are a lot of double-players too. I'm a Lock player...who has given most of my Merge play to a different skin the past few months. So it all depends on how they calculate it.

If I count as one "Merge player" but both Lock and another skin can claim me then it leads to a situation where you will have over 100% when you add it all up if you know what I mean: 40% of Merge players have an account on Lock...40% also do on RPM....and 45% also do on Carbon!!" That type of thing.

If they do it like, "of all the players online in real-money games right now, 40% are Lock players" then that's WAY different.

And if they are inflating some numbers with play-money accounts only then that changes things as well.

We will get a better handle for it, somewhat, after the change is made. I will be quite surprised if June 1st rolls around and we see Merge traffic is cut almost in half...and Lock traffic ends up being close to equal that of Merge. But if that's the case then good for Lock.

Is there an official statement by Lock yet? When can we expect something sent to our email saying what will happen to our accounts on Lock? I personally think I'm just going to move on over to Carbon or RPM. Sucks because I'll have to make a new account and go through the verification process all over again, right? It's a shame because I just reached white vip level on lock! Arrghh.

There's a press release I saw quoted word for word on one of the news sites. According to the statement, your balance will automatically roll over to the new client on May 31 and when you log back in to your account you will get a software update that takes you to the new Cake client, so it will allegedly be easy and seamless on your end.

AUGUY - Lock issued their own press release about it which also includes a couple of quotes from CEO Jen Larson. So I think that counts as an "official statement."

thats true bob. i'd like to know what the true numbers are concerning active real money players. when i say active i mean someone who plays 75%-100% on lock.

Thanks. Just haven't seen one. Saw the thread at P5s while 2+2 was down but that was about it.

Personally I am optimistic about Lock's acquisition of the Cake network. As it stands now, Merge clearly has most of the 'market power' in econ terms, simply b/c with all things considered they currently offer the best overall IP product to U.S. based players.

If Lock can somehow figure out a way to be competitive it can only benefit the rest of us U.S. players, as more competition is always better for the customers! And it would really be nice to have another viable option.

But I am really curious how will they handle RB. Will those who joined Lock after Merge discontinued RB, be able to get RB on the Revolution network? I imagine Lock will absolutely have to offer some sick incentives to its current player base so as to increase the likelihood that many of them will migrate over to Cake/Revolution, instead of just switching to another Merge skin. Lastly, any info on Intertops' future plans? Are they staying on Cake/Revolution as a skin?

You can probably work a deal with another skin as far as vip level and rakeback. You may have to wait 60 days for rakeback as per Merge terms. Although I could see Merge waiving that for Lock rakeback players.

Merge allowed the Poker Nordica players to switch their account balances to a new skin and keep their existing deals when they shut the skin down, but Poker Nordica used the Merge cashier. I'm not sure if Lock having their own cashier would prevent this or not. (Also, Merge may be willing to do it, but Lock might decide to not allow it in an effort to keep players).