UIGEA and Black Friday are the most often cited reasons for poker’s decline since it reached its apex in 2006. But these are just the most oft-cited among a myriad of potential culprits.

But what if the major reason poker’s popularity has waned has nothing to do with the availability of the game or its legality, and everything to do with the game itself?

Since the rise of Internet poker allowed players to put in a lifetime’s worth of practice in the space of a year or two, the game has become a very skillful pursuit, and like chess it’s possible that this skillfulness is what is keeping new and casual players from participating.

Correlation does not equal causation