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.

It must be nice to be able to retire at the ripe old age of 20, with $2.6 million in your back pocket. The Canadian poker pro, Mike McDonald, known better by his online poker handle, Timex, has announced that he wants to retire from poker as he feels “no ambition towards poker.”

Timex wrote on his blog that while he still loved poker and that he will never quit playing the game, he feels that at this point he is ready to retire from his hugely successful albeit very brief poker career.

“In poker, although I’ve met tons of people I really like and had tons of cool experiences, I just kind of feel like there is nowhere to go from here,” said McDonald on his blog. “I can’t really think of anyone who is more engrossed in the poker world than me who I aspire to be like and poker seems to be a lot more isolating than I initially realized.”

McDonald has some major plans that he is excited to begin already, and having so many millions in live tournament winnings in his bank account will certainly help him. Education is certainly top of his list of priorities and he noted that on his blog as well. “I think returning to school and trying out a wide variety of courses, learning new things, meeting new people, and just beginning to live a life that is more in touch with everyone else seems aligned with my interests,” he wrote. “I currently am trying to get in touch with the University of Waterloo about possibly taking some classes this summer and depending on how that goes, may return to Waterloo or another university in the fall.”

Timex was the youngest person to ever win a live European Poker Tour event in 2008, by winning the German Open prize of €933,000. His latest win has been the $1,500 No Limit Hold ‘em event at the 2010 PokerStars Caribbean Adventure tournament, where he bagged nearly $150,000.

What is pushing poker sites such as Sportsbook Poker and PlayersOnly to move from the Cake Poker Network to the fledgling Merge Gaming Poker Network?

While these two sites are scheduled to join the Merge network next month, the latest news to come out of the industry is that the two year old Lock Poker site has also announced its intentions to migrate.

It goes without saying that the addition of three poker rooms will do much to bolster the traffic at Merge, which has been suffering a decline in players in the past half a year or so.

Cake Poker, however, has actually seen an increase in traffic, so it is interesting to see whether the departure of three poker rooms will directly impact the traffic on both platforms.

By moving to the Merge network, Lock Poker will continue to offer its games and services to US poker players. The founder and Chief Executive Officer of Lock, Jennifer Larson explained why she had chosen Merge as the optimal platform to migrate to.

“They are aggressive, innovative and very progressive in design and development,” she said. “They are also dedicated to allowing their partners to be authentic which is integral to the success of a network in the long-term.”

The Merge network will certainly benefit from the addition of such as a high profile site such as Lock Poker, which hosted the Bluff Online Poker Challenge.

The site carries a contingency of Lock Pros such as Eric “Rizen” Lynch who contributes to Bluff and is also the VP of Product Development at Lock Poker. “I am very excited about the move to the Merge network and I will be working closely with them to further innovate Lock’s product,” he said.

“We are thrilled to be working with such an innovative and experienced marketing group,” said the Chief Executive Officer of the network, Anthony Taylor. “This deal will bring even more liquidity to the network and aid our continued growth.”