Gambler's Lament
Reading time: 19 minutes
✨ Overview (TL;DR)
Date: 18 July 2026
Using Appalachian mountain magic, the Jack o’ Diamonds enables the magician to locate a card that a spectator has mentally selected.
- Effect Type: Spelling/Location Effect
- Difficulty: ★★★☆☆ (Easy)
- Duration: 3-5 minutes
- Setup Time: Minimal
- Reset Time: Instant
- Props: A standard deck of playing cards
- Key Moves & Principles: Automatic Placement, Double Turnover, Breather Crimp, Marked Key Card
Introduction
This trick relies on a simple mathematical principle and some rudimentary sleight of hand. What makes it novel, however, isn’t the method; it’s the presentation, which draws inspiration from Appalachian witchcraft.
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| Great Smoky Mountains in autumn. Photo Credit: Sean Foster via Unsplash. |
Also known as “granny magic” or “root work”, this blend of European, Native American and African folk magic is unique to the eastern mountains of the United States.
Effect
A card is selected “by association” using a traditional British nursery rhyme:
“One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
Four for a birth,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told,
Eight for love,
Nine for health,
And ten for Old Splitfoot, the Devil himself.”
It’s then lost deep in the deck while your back is turned, ensuring there’s no way you could estimate its location.
Borrowing the techniques of an Appalachian water witch, you divide the deck into two piles. You hover your hand over the cards, demonstrating how they used to dowse for hidden objects, and confidently set aside the pile that lacks the proper feeling.
To cause the selection to rise to the top of the pile, you recite a historical mountain charm:
“Part the dirt and turn the stone,
Make the hidden secret known.
Draw it upward from the earth,
Bring the buried truth to birth.”
The top card is turned over, but it isn’t the spectator’s selection. Explaining that the first charm wasn’t strong enough, you note that old Appalachian “granny witches” would sometimes use a folk song to summon a little help. You deal the wrong card onto the table and ask the spectator to knock on it three times. To complete the charm, you recite an old mountain poem:
“Jack o’ Diamonds, Jack o’ Diamonds, I know you of old,
You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.”
When the card is turned face up, it has transformed into the Jack of Diamonds. Your spectator will reluctantly tell you that this is still not her chosen card. You smile and explain that this was expected—you summoned the Jack of Diamonds because he has an unnatural talent for finding hidden things. To force the scoundrel to find her card, you use a very different kind of magic spell. You deal one card from the deck for each letter in his name (“J-A-C-K-O-D-I-A-M-O-N-D-S”). The final card—the one that lands on the “S”—is turned over to reveal the chosen card.
Requirements & Preparation
While the routine uses a standard pack of playing cards, it also requires a special key card that is both marked and crimped.
To make it, take the Jack of Diamonds from the deck and—holding it face up between the fingers and thumbs of both hands (thumbs on the face)—press down with the pads of your thumbs and push up with your index and middle fingers from below, tracing a diagonal line from the centre to the lower-left and upper-right corners of the card simultaneously. Repeat this with the other two corners to form an X-shaped crease in the card. Mark the back of this card so you can quickly recognise it when it is face down, for example, with a pencil dot in each corner or by colouring a small amount of the card’s back design with a red or blue permanent marker.
Return the prepared Jack of Diamonds to the deck. Apart from the crimped and marked key card, no further preparation is required.
Method & Presentation
Hand the deck to a friendly-looking spectator and ask her to give it a good shuffle. Take back the cards and casually cut to the crimp, bringing the Jack of Diamonds to the top of the deck as you introduce the theme of the trick:
“This is more of a ritual than a card trick. I found it in an old book of Appalachian folk magic, tucked between a charm to cure warts and another to locate lost silver. The granny witches often use spoken charms to find things that don’t want to be found.”
Continue by saying, “Now, every ritual needs a victim. Sorry, I misspoke. I meant to say every ritual needs a volunteer—and since you shuffled the cards so well, congratulations. That was the audition. Don’t worry—nothing in the ritual calls for blood. It does involve some counting and spelling, though.”
Explain that you want her to pick “a secret number never to be told” between one and ten, inclusive. Once she has a number in mind, ask her to deal that many cards into a pile on the table while your back is turned. To demonstrate, deal seven cards into a pile, then drop the remainder on top. Pick up the combined deck and say, “Make sure you square up the cards before I turn back around, so I can’t see how many you transferred from the top to the bottom.” Perform another demonstration, this time with two cards, to emphasise what you want her to do and reduce the chance of her making a mistake while your back is turned.
Situation Check
Thanks to your two demonstrations, the key card (JD) is now positioned third from the bottom of the deck.
Turn away and let your participant deal any number of cards (from one to ten) onto the table, drop the talon on top, and then square up.
Turn back to face your audience. Pick up the deck and perform your favourite false cut.
Tell your helper that you’re going to have her select a card. Say, “The mountain people brought their songs and rhymes from the old country. There were no magpies in the hills, so the granny witches of the Appalachian Mountains told fortunes by counting crows instead; we’ll count cards the same way.” Take the top card, show its face to your spectator, and say “One for sorrow” before dealing it onto the table. Display the next card in the same way as you count “Two for mirth”. Continue until you’ve dealt a total of ten cards into a pile and finished reciting the entire poem (see below):
“One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
Four for a birth,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told,
Eight for love,
Nine for health,
And ten for Old Splitfoot, the Devil himself.”
Make sure you do this slowly and at an even pace so the spectator has time to remember the card, no matter which number it lands on.
🔥 Hot Tip
I very much like using this magpie/crow poem in this way because you can treat it as a short reading for the participant, with the number she picks corresponding to an omen in the poem. This better justifies the procedure by framing it as fortune-telling with playing cards (cartomancy).
Drop the remaining cards onto the ten-card pile.
🔥 Hot Tip
Instead of just dropping the cards onto the ten-card pile, you can perform Bobby Bernard’s False Swing Cut, which helps better disguise the use of a key card.
Pick up the combined deck and demonstrate a standard cut, asking your participant to do the same when your back is turned. (You’ll probably cut to the crimp, but it doesn’t matter if you miss it.)
Turn away and instruct her to cut the cards as many times as she wishes.
When you turn back, look at the top card of the deck; if you see your mark, then she has cut to the crimped card. If you don’t see the marked card on top, pick up the deck and casually cut to the crimp.
🔥 Hot Tip
To make cutting to the breather crimp more reliable, pick up the deck from above in right-hand end grip. Instead of lifting cards with your right hand to make the cut, relax your grip on the deck and let the lower portion, along with the crimped card, fall into your waiting left hand. Immediately place all the cards remaining in your right hand on the table, then slap the cards in your left hand on top to complete the cut.
If you repeatedly miss the crimp, you can always spread the cards across the table and locate the key card by its markings on its back. Gather up the cards, cutting them in the process so that the Key card is on top.
Situation Check
The ten-card stack shown to the spectator has been brought to the top of the deck, along with an unknown number of cards (selected by the spectator). The procedure has also added two indifferent cards and the key card (JD) to the top of the stack. The thought-of selection is the fourteenth card from the top of the deck, which positions it correctly for the spelling procedure to follow.
Next, ask your spectator to cut the deck into two roughly equal portions, as you say, “An Appalachian water witch is able to divine the location of water and other precious objects, such as silver and gold, by feeling for cosmic vibrations.” Hover your hand over the piles, acting as the dowsing rod. Identify the pile containing the marked Jack of Diamonds (and by extension, the selection), and confidently say, “Your card is in this pile. I’m sure of it.”
Situation Check
For the dowsing to work, her cut must be deeper than fourteen cards, as this is the position of her thought-of card. Ask for two roughly equal piles and indicate the size you want with your hands as you ask. If she cuts noticeably short, treat it as part of the ritual—the halves must balance—and have her replace the packet and cut again.
Take the other pile, turn it face up and spread it across the table—the spectator’s thought-of card isn’t there. Gather up the cards, turn them face down and place them aside.
Pick up the other pile and casually spread the cards, as you say, “So your thought-of card must be in this pile somewhere. In Appalachian Mountain Magic, they don’t say ‘Abracadabra’ or ‘Hocus Pocus’. They use spoken words, prayers and ancient commands to force the earth to yield.” As you square up, get a little-finger break below the top two cards (the Jack of Diamonds and an indifferent card).
Hover your left hand over the cards and recite the following charm:
“Part the dirt and turn the stone,
Make the hidden secret known.
Draw it upward from the earth,
Bring the buried truth to birth.”
Perform a double turnover to display the indifferent card. Wait for your spectator to inform you that it isn’t her selection.
Look bemused, then say, “Hmm, I’m not sure why that didn’t work. When a simple spell failed, the old mountain witches used something called sympathetic magic. They would call upon a spirit that naturally resonated with what they sought. We are looking for a secret hidden within a deck of cards. In Appalachian folklore, no spirit is more closely associated with the dark side of a deck of cards than the Jack of Diamonds. They would knock three times and sing a binding charm—an old mountain folk song known as the Gambler’s Lament—to call him forth.”
Turn the double face down again and deal the top card—the Jack of Diamonds—onto the table. Tell your spectator to knock three times on the face-down card. Once she’s done this, recite the charm:
“Jack o’ Diamonds, Jack o’ Diamonds, I know you of old,
You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.”
Turn the card over to reveal that it has transformed into the Jack of Diamonds.
It won’t take long for your spectator to tell you that the Jack isn’t her thought-of card, either. Respond by saying, “I know it’s not your card. The Jack of Diamonds is a scoundrel. But because he’s a thief, he has an uncanny knack for finding hidden things. We’ve summoned him; now we just have to force him to do our bidding. To bind a spirit like this, you don’t use a spoken charm. You use a very different type of magic spell.”
Pick up the deck and say, “We bind him by spelling his true name…” Hand her the deck and instruct her to deal one card for each letter in the phrase “J-A-C-K-O-D-I-A-M-O-N-D-S”, keeping a steady, deliberate cadence. If it helps, you can slowly spell the phrase as she does the dealing.
On the final “S”, stop her dead. As she turns this card over, finish your sentence, “...and force him to reveal what is hidden.”
Cleanup & Reset
Reassemble the deck. Thanks to the breather crimp, you’re now ready to repeat the effect.
Performance Tips & Additional Ideas
If you want to spell “Jack of Diamonds” with the “F”, you need to add another card to the stack. To do this, demonstrate how you want your spectator to select a secret number by dealing seven cards, then three rather than two. This will position the crimped and marked key card (JD) fourth from the bottom.
Likewise, you can spell “The Jack of Diamonds” by asking your spectator to pick a number between one and fifteen, then adjust the method accordingly—you’ll need to omit the counting poem or construct a longer one (I’ve included one below to save you the trouble):
One for sorrow,
Two for mirth,
Three for a wedding,
Four for a birth,
Five for silver,
Six for gold,
Seven for a secret never to be told,
Eight for laughter,
Nine for a grave,
Ten for a witch,
Eleven for a knave,
Twelve for wealth,
Thirteen for love,
Fourteen for health,
And fifteen for Old Splitfoot, the Devil himself.
Begin by cutting the key card to the top, then perform a slip shuffle to control it second from the bottom. Next, have a spectator deal out her secret number, then continue with the method as described above (dealing fifteen cards instead of ten). I prefer to keep the phrase as short as possible, and the “Jack o’ Diamonds” spelling helps reinforce the Appalachian theme of the trick. However, these two variations show how you can adjust the method to use a different card name or phrase. For example, you could spell out the nickname for the Jack of Diamonds, “Laughing Boy”, instead. This phrase contains eleven letters, so the crimp needs to be on the bottom of the deck before the spectator selects a secret number (perform the seven-card demonstration and simply skip the two-card one). I like this idea because you could argue that “Laughing Boy” is the card’s true “given name”, as it’s the nickname the Old West gamblers gave him.
You don’t need to perform a double turnover. You can simply dead-cut to the Jack of Diamonds, or, if you’re lucky, have your spectator do it for you. This approach works well if you want to present “Gambler’s Lament” as a cautionary tale about gambling to excess—this was my original intention for the routine—rather than as a demonstration of folk witchcraft.
If, however, you want to emphasise the historical accuracy of the “water dowsing” premise, you can use a physical pendulum (a heavy ring on a string, a pocket watch or an antique key on a chain) rather than your hand.
Hold the pendulum perfectly still over the wrong cards. Move the pendulum over the pile with the key card, and subtly impart a micro-movement to your wrist so it swings side to side or in a circle. This creates a beautiful, eerie visual that perfectly matches the trick’s Appalachian mountain magic theme.
Another idea is to spread the pile containing the thought-of card, then have your spectator take one from it. If she selects her thought-of card, capitalise on this coincidence and finish the effect there. If she doesn’t, take the indifferent card, place it face up on top of the packet, and perform Marc DeSouza’s Shapeshifter Change to visually transform it into the Jack of Diamonds. Then finish by spelling/dealing to the chosen card in the usual manner.
Here’s another way to handle the selection process, based on “The Mystic Queen” by Eddie Joseph (see Eddie’s Dumbfounders with Cards, page 10). This approach has the advantage of not requiring a secret number. You can also let two people select cards. The trade-off is that the selection and replacement aren’t quite as clean as those used in the main method above.
Begin by cutting the key card (JD) to the top of the deck, then casually shuffle it to the bottom. Deal thirteen cards into a pile in front of Spectator A, justifying the number by noting that thirteen is, traditionally, the number of witches in a coven.
Perform a slip shuffle to mix the remaining cards while secretly retaining the key card on the bottom. Offer the cards to a second spectator (B), and instruct him to cut about half the cards from the deck and give them a thorough shuffle.
Perform two or three additional slip shuffles as you ask Spectator A to shuffle her thirteen cards, look at and remember the bottom card of the packet, then drop the packet on top of Spectator B’s pile.
As an afterthought, tell Spectator B to look at and remember the top card of the combined pile (this is actually the top card of Spectator A’s packet, though don’t draw attention to this). Cut half the cards from your pile onto the table. Take Spectator B’s cards and drop them on top. Place the remaining cards in your hand on top, then cut and complete.
Situation Check
The key card (JD) is above your thirteen-card stack, which is somewhere in the middle of the deck. Spectator A’s card is at the bottom of this stack, while Spectator B’s is on top, immediately below the key card. Even though this is a simple key card placement, the multiple cuts and slip shuffles make the whole sequence feel fair and hands-off.
Continue with the routine as described above, beginning by instructing both spectators to cut the cards several times to deepen the mystery.
When you perform the double turnover, the second spectator’s card will appear. You then transform this card into the Jack of Diamonds, which will most likely be perceived as a mistake (because you have successfully found the second spectator’s card). This will make the spell-deal location of Spectator A’s card that much more surprising and impressive.
If you don’t want to openly give thirteen cards to Spectator A, you can use the breather crimp to make the situation appear more carefree. Cut the key card to the top. Turn the deck face up to prove the cards are well mixed. As you spread through the cards, sight-count thirteen, and then hold a little-finger break as you square up. Use a Double Undercut to bring the key card to the rear of the deck. You can now turn the deck face down and cut a “random” (?) number of cards, dropping them in front of Spectator A. If you’re feeling particularly brave, you can even have her cut the deck while you hold the cards; she’ll most likely cut at the breather crimp.
While this is a valuable alternative approach, I think that justifying the number of cards given to Spectator A through the routine’s Appalachian witchcraft theme hides the method well enough; once you’ve given the number a plausible meaning, most people will not be able to attach any further meaning to it. In other words, it’s difficult for your audience to both assign a symbolic meaning to the number and suspect that it might have something to do with the trick’s workings.
A breather crimp should be subtle. The most common mistake is making the creases too strong, which turns a breather into a bridge, and a gap appears along the side of the squared deck. Hold the finished card at eye level; you should only just be able to see the crimp. Then square the deck and look at it from the side. If you can spot where the Jack is sitting, you’ve gone too far. Put the work in softly at first, then re-crease if needed; it takes seconds to deepen a shallow crimp and a new card to rescue an over-crimped one.
🔥 Hot Tip
Test the crimp before you perform, not during. Hold the deck from above in right-hand end grip and let the lower portion fall into your left hand, exactly as described above. Do this ten times. If the deck breaks at the Jack eight or nine times out of ten, you’re golden. If it misses more often, press the creases again—a little bit at a time, retesting after each pass. Then repeat the whole test with the deck turned end for end. Because the X-shaped crease dents the card symmetrically, it should behave identically both ways round, which matters; your spectator won’t be thinking about which way she hands it back.
Be aware that the crimp won’t last forever. Card stock, humidity and handling all work to remove it. A brand-new deck is stiff and may need a firmer press to take the crease at all; a well-worn one takes it instantly and loses it just as fast. Storing the deck in its box, with the rest of the pack pressing down on it, will flatten the crimp over time. So test before every performance, rather than assume it survived the week in your jacket, and expect to refresh it now and again.
The mark on the back of the Jack only has to be readable at a glance, from your side of the table. Test it by dealing the Jack face down among a dozen other cards and looking at them all for a second—if you have to pause or peer, the mark is too small; if a spectator’s eye is drawn to it, it’s too big. Pencil has the advantage of being reversible, and of looking like natural wear and tear rather than preparation if anyone ever notices it.
Why do you need a crimped and marked key card? The crimp and the mark are belt and braces, and they do different jobs. The crimp gets you to the right place in the deck by feel; the mark tells you whether you've arrived. That’s why the routine has you glance at the top card after your spectator’s cuts—if the mark is there, she has done the work for you, and if it isn’t, you cut to the crimp yourself, and nobody is any the wiser.Finally, if you don’t want to use a crimped card, you can modify the method to include the magical reversal of the Jack of Diamonds instead.
Begin by casually cutting the Jack of Diamonds to the face of the deck. Perform a standard Braue Reversal, leaving the Jack face up on the bottom of the face-down deck. Demonstrate how your spectator should pick a secret number by dealing two cards onto the table, dropping the talon on top. This positions the face-up Jack of Diamonds third from the bottom.
The rest of the trick is the same. Once you’ve dealt ten cards onto the table, drop the deck on top, square it up, then cut about a quarter of the deck from the top to the bottom (to centre the face-up Jack). Recite the poem:
“Jack o’ Diamonds, Jack o’ Diamonds, I know you of old,
You’ve robbed my poor pockets of silver and gold.”
Then reveal the face-up Jack of Diamonds by spreading the cards across the table. Cut the Jack to the top, then set it aside. Finish by spelling “J-A-C-K-O-D-I-A-M-O-N-D-S”, dealing one card for each letter in the phrase until you reach the mental selection on the final “S”.
This approach is arguably the most practical option because it requires no setup in advance and can be performed with any deck.
Background & Credits
This routine drew its primary inspiration from Dominique Duvivier’s “Quatre de Carreau” (“Four of Diamonds”), available as a streaming video on Double Fond TV. His routine uses the Automatic Placement—a principle named and popularised by Ed Marlo—to produce a comedic prediction effect that is, in fact, a spelling/location effect in disguise.
However, this mathematical placement principle predates Marlo. Although it is unclear who first discovered it, the prolific magician Eddie Joseph published several tricks based on the principle in his 1950 booklet, Eddie’s Dumbfounders with Cards.
Paul Gordon later published his excellent routine “The Eight of Diamonds” (Pack Up Your Cards 1, 2005), which is similar in method and effect to “Gambler’s Lament”. In fact, you can use the core method of “Gambler’s Lament” to perform Paul’s trick. Paul’s trick also appears in the audio recording Secrets of a Commercial Card Magician and, more recently, in his 2012 book Gold Dust.
A Note on the Folklore
Some of the folklore in this routine is authentic; some is my invention. Water witching—dowsing for hidden water, minerals and lost objects—is a genuine Appalachian practice, as are the “granny women” who carry and preserve the region’s charms and folk remedies.
The song is real, too: “Jack o’ Diamonds”, perhaps better known today as “Rye Whiskey”, is a traditional American folk song that goes by many names, and the couplet about robbed pockets appears in many of its variants. (It’s probably connected to—but shouldn’t be confused with—the Texas gambling song “Jack of Diamonds” popularised by Blind Lemon Jefferson in the 1920s.)
The magpie counting rhyme is a traditional British nursery rhyme first recorded in 1780. The final lines—and the longer fifteen-count poem—are my adaptation, compiled from traditional variants and borrowing “Old Splitfoot”, a genuine American folk name for the Devil, made famous by the Hydesville rappings of 1848. Readers who know their séance history will appreciate the fitting coincidence: the Fox sisters summoned “Mr. Splitfoot” with knocks on wood, just as we do here. And as Margaretta Fox confessed forty years later, their knocks were a trick all along.
Everything else—the title, “Gambler’s Lament”; the dowsing charm; the three knocks; the Jack of Diamonds’s reputation as a summonable spirit; and the idea that you bind him by spelling his true name—is my invention for artistic purposes and offered with affection for the traditions it imitates. The history is history; the patter is patter. I’d encourage you to keep them in separate pockets, along with your silver and gold!
The transformation at the heart of this routine—a card changed into the Jack of Diamonds by a verse of an old folk song—first appeared in my packet trick “Laughing Boy and Lumberjack”, a multi-phase handling of Dr. Daley’s Last Trick, in which the same scoundrel wore his Old West nickname (Laughing Boy). “Gambler’s Lament” moves him from the Western saloon to the Appalachian mountainside and gives him a new role: finding a hidden card in the deck.
Final Thoughts
The Automatic Placement is a brilliant mathematical tool, but the method becomes fairly transparent without a suitable presentation that shifts the focus away from the procedure. “Gambler’s Lament” solves this problem by transforming the trick’s mechanical method into a theatrical strength. Because the card is selected using a nursery rhyme and the performer is discussing Appalachian “granny magic”, the routine becomes an Appalachian folk ritual rather than a mathematical puzzle for your audience to unravel.
The true benefit of this routine lies in its layers of deception. Because the sleight of hand is minimal—relying primarily on the crimped card—you are free to focus your energy entirely on storytelling and audience management.
The hands-off selection process amplifies what is a simple location effect, while the final spelling sequence provides a satisfying and surprising conclusion to the routine.
Ultimately, “Gambler’s Lament” makes a vital point about magic theory: you do not need knuckle-busting sleights to create a powerful effect. By giving your audience a compelling reason for every action you take, even the most procedure-heavy, self-working tricks can be elevated to memorable, resonant pieces of magic.
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