Balatro: training skills through a universally acclaimed poker roguelike

3 minute read

                                                                           Image credit: Balatro

I’ve spent almost 100 hours this year playing illegal poker, but not in the backroom of some shady establishment. I’ve kept busy with the addicting deck-building game Balatro. Over those many hours, I’ve found myself improving at strategic planning and adaptability, something I want to highlight in this blog. 
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Gambling is for fools
Balatro kicks off like luck-based poker (minus the bluffing), but quickly puts you in control, letting you shift the odds into your favor through smart strategies and adaptable playstyles. It begins with a standard deck of 52 cards (13 per suit), and you’re dealt 8 cards to form your hand. The goal is to create a combination that scores as many points as possible, but here’s where the decisions get interesting: you can choose to play between 1 and 5 cards for points or discard bad ones to draw new ones. These plays and discards are limited so you should always ask yourself, are these cards good enough to play?  Each round, or as the game calls them “blind” (akin to poker), you have to beat an ever-increasing score, if you don’t you have to start over all again. 

                                                                             Image credit: Balatro

The only card I need
At this point, you might be thinking, “This just sounds like poker, except with discards.”. But now comes the part where things get wild, the “illegal” part, I mentioned before. Between rounds, you will be sent into a shop that sells card packs, jokers (will get back to that in a little while), and other items that will help you. These card packs allow you to get either new cards or do things with current cards that change them. To give a quick illustration, imagine yourself buying a new Ace of spades, and adding it to your preexisting deck. Immediately thereafter you will find a special card (called a “tarot” in-game) that lets you recolor up to three cards into spades. If you’re lucky enough to have three non-spade aces in hand, you can convert them into spades. This leaves you with the possibility to draw 5 aces of spades at the same time, which is simultaneously a 5 of a kind (which for the poker connoisseurs is an impossible draw in itself) but also a flush (all cards are of the same color)! Talk about bending the rules.

​I don’t share your greed
This shop mechanic is where the game really tested my strategic planning and resource management. After each round, you’re rewarded with in-game currency that can be spent in the shop. However, there’s also an interest system at play, the more money you save at the end of a round, the more you earn in the next. This creates a constant dilemma: should I spend the money now to ensure that I can push through the next round? Or should I save the money and risk going into the next round with a weaker deck, hoping to earn more later and carry me through multiple rounds at a time?  

Image credit: Balatro

And don’t forget the Joker!
But perhaps the most interesting mechanic is the 150 unique jokers, each of which can dramatically shape your strategy.  You can hold up to five separate jokers, and the key to success is making sure they synergize.  For example, there’s a joker that increases your multiplier for every spade card that you play, and another that increases your score for each ace that you play. Combine these with your 5 aces of spades, and you’re looking at a game-breaking combo. That is, until…

                                                                           Image credit: Balatro

Going with the flow
As can be seen in the screenshot above, in three rounds there is a so called “Boss blind” that debuffs every spade card, which means that they do not give any score. Would I continue with my “unbeatable” strategy of 5 aces of spades, I will definitely not make it through, which means starting all over again (remind me why do I like roguelikes so much?). But here’s where adaptability comes in, since the game gives me a heads-up on upcoming Boss Blinds, I can pivot my strategy if I’m quick and a bit lucky. Maybe I can find the tarot card that lets me recolor those spades into diamonds, or, if the stars align, do I find the Legendary Joker that cancels out the effect of the boss blind altogether. Learning to adapt on the fly has been a big part of my growth while playing. 

                                                                           Image credit: Balatro

​Pushing up the ante
And like any great repayable game, Balatro keeps pushing me to improve these skills, especially at higher difficulties. For instance, some Jokers can’t be sold or removed in harder modes, which forces me to think even further ahead. Taking a joker which helps me in the short-term, with plans to sell it later isn’t an option anymore. Now I have to think whether I can make this specific joker work for the rest of the game. Multiple of such modifiers were added while climbing the difficulty ladder, making sure the game stays engaging and challenging, keeping me hooked. After nearly 100 hours of gameplay, I’ve not only improved my strategic skills, but also discovered the satisfaction of adapting on the spot and beating a Boss Blind that was on its way to end my run.