The break-up between Bluff Room and the Merge Network became official on Wednesday, with the Bluff Room skin formally being deactivated and its customers being greeted when logging in with a prompt to transfer their balances to other Merge sites.

Customers are currently greeted by the following, with directions to Merge’s own customer-service center, at support@mergegaming.eu:

Merge is allowing existing Bluff Room customers to transfer their funds to another Merge site of their choosing, whether an already-existing account on another skin or a new Merge-based account altogether. Downloading and installing a new client is necessary for players in the latter category.

While the story behind the breakdown in relations between Merge and Bluff Room continues to unfold, Bluff Room’s exit from the online-poker industry may be related to the separate publication by site co-owner Giovanni Paticchio of a “first notice for voluntary strike-off” of a seemingly related poker business entity called Just Bluff Limited, in the Oct. 2, 2012 London Gazette.

Paticchio applied for the striking off of Just Bluff Limited roughly two weeks ago, and such business notices are standard procedure for the dissolution of business entities. (Paticchio was temporarily unavailable for comment to confirm that this entity controlled the now-defunct Merge Network skin.) Just Bluff Limited lists Giovanni and Natasha Paticchio as directors.

Giovanni Paticchio was also a director at a British company by the name of Bluff Room Limited which was dissolved in February 2011.