Eb       Ab       Eb       Ab   
Intro: 2/2 ‖        |        |        |        ‖

Eb                                                                  Ab                           Eb
1. On a warm sum-mer's ev-en-ing   On a train bound for no-where
                                                                                                  Bb
I met up with the gam-bler   We were both too tired to sleep
     Eb                                                     Ab                         Eb
So we took turns a staring   At the dark-ness at the win-dow
       Ab                       Eb                     Bb                  Eb
Till bore-dom over-took us    And he began to speak

He said Son I've made a life   Out of read-ing peo-ple's fa-ces
And know-ing what their cards were   By the way they held their eyes
And if you don't mind my say-in'   I can see you're out of a-ces
For a taste of your whis-key   I'll give you some ad-vice |  %  | 

So I han-ded him my bot-tle   And he drank down my last swal-low
Then he bummed a ci-gar-ette   And asked me for a light
And the night got death-ly quiet   And his face lost all ex-pres-sion
Said if you're gon-na play the game boy   Ya got-ta learn to play it right

                  Eb                                          Ab                     Eb
You got to know when to hold 'em    Know when to fold 'em
 Ab                     Eb                                                    Bb
Know when to walk a-way   And know when to run
                     Eb                                                       Ab                     Eb
You ne-ver count your mo-ney   When you're sit-ting at the ta-ble
                     Ab                         Eb                 Bb7                              Eb
There'll be time e-nough for count-ing    When the deal-ings done | % | % | % |

(key change)
E                                                           A                       E
Ev-'ry gam-bler knows   That the se-cret to sur-viv-ing
      E                                                                                                 B7
Is know-ing what to throw a-way   And know-ing what to keep
             E                                                A                         E
Cause ev-'ry hand's a win-ner and ev-'ry hand's a lo-ser
              A                              E                         B7               E
And the best that you can hope for   Is to die in your sleep

And when he'd fi-nished speak-in'   He turned back to-ward the win-dow
Crushed out his ci-ga-rette   And fa-ded off to sleep
And some-where in the dark-ness   The gam-bler he broke e-ven
But in his fi-nal words I found an ace that I could keep

                    E                                           A                        E
You got to know when to hold 'em    Know when to fold 'em
A                         E                                                      B
Know when to walk a-way   And know when to run
                     E                                                          A                       E
You ne-ver count your mo-ney   When you're sit-ting at the ta-ble
                     A                            E                   B7                               E 
There'll be time e-nough for count-ing   When the deal-ings done 

Repeat Chorus 2 more times.