To score high and win in Balatro, there are some strategies you can try depending on the difficulty you’re playing on, your deck, and the results of your first Tags and Shops. While the game is a poker roguelike, which means you should play with what you’re offered, there are good practices to win more at Balatro.
For Balatro beginners – Hands strategy
Starting at White Stake in Balatro, Flushes and Straights are your best bet for scoring high. This approach is straightforward: aim for a Flush by getting five cards of the same suit or go for a Straight, though Straights are a bit harder to get.
To boost your Flush chances, if you have a mix of suits, discard non-matching cards to draw more of the suit you’re closest to completing. For instance, if you start with two Spades, one Diamond, three Hearts, and two Clubs, focus on getting two more Hearts by discarding cards that aren’t Hearts. For Straights, focus on sequences, but remember they’re harder to hit because you’re looking for one of four cards instead of one or two in 10, as you usually do in Flushes. When you’re just short of winning, Two Pair or Three of a Kind can be good fallbacks.
In the Shop phase, buy Planet Boosters to increase the level of Flushes and Straights and Tarot Boosters to change your deck and increase your odds of getting these hands. Choose Jupiter for Flushes and Saturn for Straights, and use tarot cards like The World and The Sun to increase your chances of drawing multiple cards of the same suit.
Key Jokers for this strategy include Droll and Crazy Joker for Mult on Straights or Flushes and Devious and Crafty Joker for extra Chips. Four Fingers Joker, allowing Flushes and Straights with four cards, and Shortcut, for Straights with gaps, are game-changers. Also, consider Jokers like Constellation and Green Joker for their powerful bonuses to chips and multipliers.
For Balatro advanced players – Jokers strategy
When you start playing with higher stakes, the Flush and Straight strategies become less effective because you have fewer opportunities to adjust your hand—you have fewer Discards, Hands, and a smaller Hand Size. Then, you need to switch to a strategy where you aim to win with lower-value poker hands, like High Card and Pair, which are greatly improved by powerful Jokers. This approach is also effective at lower levels.
The goal here is to gather a strong set of Jokers that provide scaling Chips, Mult, and Mult multipliers. If these benefits grow over time, it means the more you play, the more valuable they become. For instance, Supernova increases your Mult the more you use a poker hand, while Bull gives you more Chips the more money you have. This way, the power of these Jokers can keep increasing, and you won’t need to swap them out, which is crucial as the stakes get higher. Then, you need to adjust how you play to take full advantage of these cards’ escalating power, moving away from trying to get the perfect hand to score.
For example, if you have $50 with Bull, you earn 100 Chips from this Joker alone, no matter what hand you play. If you also have Bootstraps, that adds 20 to your Mult. This means any hand you play, including just a High Card, could earn you at least 100 Chips multiplied by 20, which equals an impressive 2,000 points in a single hand—enough to beat all the initial Blinds in the first few rounds. This is the advantage of a Joker-focused strategy: you can win with almost any hand without needing to change your deck, and you can even ignore Planet cards entirely. Just remember to play according to the growing benefits of your Jokers. Some of the best Jokers for this strategy include:
- Supernova
- Bull
- Bootstraps
- Green Joker
- Square Joker
- Hologram
- Obelisk
- Fortune Teller
- Constellation
I first heard about this strategy from the detailed guide by u/DrBoomMD. The main problem I have with some of their advice is that it’s too concentrated on the late stages of Balatro, such as playing at the Orange and Gold Stakes, which are levels many players won’t even try. So, I wouldn’t say the Flush strategy is wrong, but rather a beginner-friendly approach for the initial difficulty levels.
Situational – Tarot and Spectral mixes
When you’re using either of the strategies mentioned above, you might be able to switch to a completely different one based on the cards you get from Tarot and Spectral Booster Packs—and sometimes, it’s a good idea to switch.
For example, while I was playing to get screenshots for this article, I received an early Ouija from a Jumbo Spectral Pack that changed all the cards in my hand into Jacks. My approach suddenly shifted to playing Pairs up to Five of a Kind. It’s an example of how, even if I had a great set of Jokers for playing High Cards, I would likely still look for Jokers that work well with Pairs and Three of a Kind because the game gave me this opportunity. However, in that same game, I wouldn’t ignore a chance to score big with a Straight just because my deck had a lot of Jacks.
In summary, stick to your main strategy but be ready to adapt to new winning opportunities the game throws your way.
