Kenny Rogers
The Gambler chords
The Gambler by Kenny Rogers is a beginner song in Eb, played with a capo on fret 1. The whole sheet is 4 chords (D, G, A, Em) across 2 sections: Verse → Chorus. Every shape is an open chord, so nothing here needs barre strength.
By Chiye · Updated
Hardest change in the sheet: D → A, 5 times.
- Difficulty
- Beginnerno barre needed
- Key
- Ebwith a capo on fret 1
- Tuning
- Standard (E A D G B E)low to high
- Chords
- 4all open shapes
- Sections
- 2each with its own progression
Chords in The Gambler
Frets read low E to high E, x means leave that string out.
Chord sheet
One chord per bar in this practice sheet. Follow the time signature shown beside each section; dots mark the remaining counts in the bar. Tap a bar to hear its chord, or loop the section to practise the changes.
Chord accompaniment only. Follow the section notes for this arrangement’s timing. Songs whose words are public domain →
Verse4/4 · ♩=90
Chorus4/4 · ♩=90
Printable one-page chord chart
How to play The Gambler
Capo on fret 1 and four open shapes — D, G, A and Em — carry the whole song. It is a talking-blues ballad, which means the vocal is half spoken and the guitar is really just a bed for the story, so the goal is a relaxed, even strum that never fights the words. The verse sits on D and moves to G and A; the chorus uses exactly the same chords with the Em added as a passing colour on its third line. Nothing here requires speed, only patience.
Em and D do not share a fretted high E in the diagrams here: Em leaves it open and D uses fret 2. Prepare the D triangle as you release Em, and practise the return to Em on the A and D strings at fret 2. For A, begin the strum on the open A string and leave the low E out.
Practise at 80 BPM with one chord per printed bar. Loop the verse until the changes are comfortable, then add the chorus. If you choose to raise this arrangement by a whole tone, move the capo up two frets, from fret 1 to fret 3. One fret raises the pitch by only a semitone; the shapes can remain unchanged in either case.
How to practise The Gambler
Four steps computed from this sheet: the order the shapes are easiest to learn in, the changes that really occur in the progressions above, where each chord turns up, and the tempo ladder up to the speed marked here.
Learn the shapes easiest first
D (x-x-0-2-3-2, beginner) → G (3-2-0-0-0-3, beginner) → A (x-0-2-2-2-0, beginner) → Em (0-2-2-0-0-0, beginner)
4 of the 4 shapes are open chords, so nothing here needs barre strength yet.
Drill the changes this sheet actually uses
D → A5×D → G4×A → D3×G → D2×
These counts come from the progressions on this page, so they are the changes you will actually play, not a generic list of pairs to practise.
Know where each chord turns up
- Devery section
- Gevery section
- Aevery section
- EmChorus
Climb the tempo ladder
This sheet does not list a tempo, so pick one where every change is clean and use the metronome to move up in 4 BPM steps.
Practise each section's chord changes slowly, then play the sheet through at a steady tempo without pausing between sections.
Playing The Gambler with a capo
This sheet is written with a capo on fret 1. Each card shows what you would finger at that capo position so the song still sounds exactly as written. Useful when the shapes above are awkward, or when you want to sing it higher without learning new chords.
No capo
Eb Ab Bb Fm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 1as written
D G A Em
4 of 4 stay open
Fret 2
C# F# Ab Ebm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 3
C F G Dm
3 of 4 stay open
Fret 4
B E F# C#m
1 of 4 stay open
Fret 5
Bb Eb F Cm
no open shapes left, all barre
Fret 6
A D E Bm
3 of 4 stay open
Fret 7
Ab C# Eb Bbm
no open shapes left, all barre
Working out a different key? The capo calculatordoes the same arithmetic for any chord set.
More songs built on the same chords
If The Gambler clicks, these use the closest set of shapes, so the chords you just learned keep working.
More beginner songs to learn after this one: Sweater Weather, Payphone, The Scientist, 505.
These chords across the songbookHow often each chord in The Gambler turns up across all 104 songs on this site, and what it most often moves to next. The counts come from the sheet library itself, not from theory.
323bars of this chord across the songbook
58songs use this shape
Most often followed by G, 52×.
509bars of this chord across the songbook
77songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 89×.
134bars of this chord across the songbook
24songs use this shape
Most often followed by D, 19×.
155bars of this chord across the songbook
43songs use this shape
Most often followed by C, 27×.