Despite my despise of Victory poker and the owners/poker pros I’m obligated to publish news for anyone interested about the poker website.

If we are to heed the speculation in the online poker world in recent days, Victory Poker may soon be moving to the Cake Poker Network. Unidentified sources were quoted as saying that the move could come about as early as next month.

The industry got wind of the news in a rather roundabout way. A reliable source apparently heard Dan Fleyshman, owner of Victory Poker (as well as Who’s Your Daddy energy beverage company), boast that he was due to make a major announcement regarding the future of Victory Poker on his birthday in September.

CalvinAyre.com carried a story saying that Fleyshman would be making ‘an exciting Victory Poker announcement’ at his birthday party in London September 1st. Dan has been spending an usually large amount of time in Vancouver over the past month, and two major poker networks – Cake and Merge – have offices in Vancouver.”

So who is Victory Poker and where is this site positioned in the grand scheme of things?

The site launched at the Hard Rock Café in Vegas earlier this year in a dazzling event that had many of the top echelon of the poker world attending.

The poker room debuted on – and is currently working off – the Everleaf network, which merged with UPN to carry Victory Poker. The network currently incorporates Minted Poker, Poker4Ever, Everleaf Poker, as well as Victory Poker.

It is speculated that that Victory Poker is keen to move away from Everleaf in search of greater liquidity for its players.

PokerScout ranks the Everleaf Network as 22nd in terms of real money ring game traffic, while the Cake Poker Network is ranked 16th.

Victory Poker, for its part, is particularly pro-player and uses this strategy in its high profile marketing campaigns. So called Professionals such as Antonio Esfandiari are part of Victory’s team of sponsored players, as well as Lee Markholt and Paul Wasicka.

There’s a lot going on at the Cake Poker Network, one of the more popular US facing online poker sites. Recently, one of the oldest poker rooms in the industry, Intertops, announced that it would be shifting to the Cake network, bringing a new boost of player activity to the platform. There are now 55 online poker rooms that belong to the Cake Poker Network, making it the 11th largest in the world, and boasting top names such as Doyles Room and Unabomber Poker (created by Phil Laak).

Two important things happened soon after Intertops joined the network. Firstly, Cake Poker announced several new exciting features that are sure to become a big hit with players. These are all incorporated in the launch of the updated software Cake 2.0 and include a handy calendar, tournament schedules and notification and a fantastic new lobby set up.

The other big change involves a partnership deal recently signed between Cake Poker and the European based casino software group, CTXM. The deal calls for the two to pool their services and market them as a joint venture to gaming sites across the globe.

“Since Cake and CTXM operate non-competitive businesses within the online gaming space and have a similar model, joining forces seemed like the perfect evolution of the relationship,” said the Chief Executive Officer of CTXM, Udy Yosha. “Our partnership with Cake perfectly fits with our strategy of providing one-stop-shop solutions to our partners.”

The director of marketing at Cake, Andrew Turner, said that his group is extremely pleased to partner with CTX due to their long history in online gambling and their high levels of innovation.

“We are also excited to be launching two new partners to the Cake Network in Comeon.com and AdamEvePoker.com, both of which bring strong brands and unique marketing approaches. We look forward to a long and successful partnership,” he added.

Many commented that they have never seen Phil Ivey look as relaxed and happy as he did when he attended the official opening of the new high stakes room named in his honor at the Aria Casino this weekend. The Ivey Room was the scene of some incredible poker action, thanks to a $1 million invite only freeroll event with some of the biggest names in the poker world making up the guest list.

Phil Ivey, not a man of many words and certainly not one to express his feelings in interviews, couldn’t help but gush about the new poker room.

“This has to be one of the biggest achievements of my life,” Ivey said in an interview to Bluff Magazine. “Having a poker room named after me…I just can’t believe it, really. When Bill McBeath asked me to have the room named after me, I just laughed at him. I was like, ‘Come on, stop joking.’ I really didn’t think anything was going to happen and then I get a phone call and there’s a date for the tournament.”

Those in attendance were certainly out in full force to offer Ivey their support and honor one of the best poker players in history. Doyle Brunson, TJ Cloutier, Barry Greenstein and Eli Elezra were just some of the big names to be found rubbing shoulders at the Aria Poker Room.

The $1 million freeroll added excitement to the evening, with Chino Rheem finally taking down Ivey and winning the bounty on the guest of honor’s head.

After the freeroll, impromptu poker games between pros such as Jennifer Harman, David Benyamine and Tim Phan took place in the Ivey Room, and no doubt big bucks swapped hands long after the official evening ended.