How do you "win" a run?

[Jesse4060]

I'm not asking for tips, I mean how do you definitively end a run. So far, from other posts and pictures I've seen, the game has no end to any run you do? It just goes on endlessly, but that can't be because you have to "win" a run to unlock stuff-- So how do you "win" a run???

[Descending Minor Key Line Cliche]

You win after beating ante 8. You get a choice to keep playing or go back to the main menu after beating the boss of ante 8, but you've won and it's counted as win at this point, even if you keep playing (since you WILL lose eventually.) There is no reason to make it past ante 12 other than for fun, though, because you unlock a joker for reaching ante 12 but there are no other unlocks tied to endless runs.

[Goblin]

Every time you beat a boss you go up one ante. You start at 1. Ante 8 has one of five special bosses, and beating that wins the run. You're then free to continue in endless mode, but aside from one unlockable you never have to, it's just for fun/bragging rights.

[Dayo]

This isn't true. I've went past Ante 8 and 'lost.' I looked at my Stats and it does not count as a win. I'm still at 0 wins :(

[Scrub]

Originally posted by Dayo:

This isn't true. I've went past Ante 8 and 'lost.' I looked at my Stats and it does not count as a win. I'm still at 0 wins :(

Were you playing a seeded run? Only unseeded runs give unlocks.

[Mickon]

Same happened to me. I never played a seeded game and still my win didnt count

EDIT: Ok my fault was to think i have won after in the lower left of the screen the counter shows 8/8, but that's not true. You won after the massage appears that you have won.

[BobbyRunout]

Originally posted by Mickon:

Same happened to me. I never played a seeded game and still my win didnt count

EDIT: Ok my fault was to think i have won after in the lower left of the screen the counter shows 8/8, but that's not true. You won after the massage appears that you have won.

Yeah, x/8 means you're on level x, not that you've beaten level x. So to win you have to reach 9/8

Beyond that....as other posters have explained...."all wins are equal, but some wins are more equal than others"

[Sentient_Toaster]

Yup. And, to be clear, whether or not you unlock things isn't dependent on whether or not you proceed to Endless mode or not, except that Endless may give you more ability to hit those unlocks that you haven't yet reached (e.g. having $400 or more at once, playing a hand that scores at least 100 million chips, etc).

[False Prophet]

Originally posted by Dayo:

This isn't true. I've went past Ante 8 and 'lost.' I looked at my Stats and it does not count as a win. I'm still at 0 wins :(

something went wrong then because it does unless you used bone joker to get past ante 8 maybe?

[spoto]

I have beaten 8 ante several times and I still do not have a win playing unseeded.

[spoto]

I just beat the 9th boss level and that is what wins a game.

[Goblin]

Originally posted by spoto:

I just beat the 9th boss level and that is what wins a game.

No, when you defeat the 8th boss level (while it says 8/8) it changes to 9/8 right away. That doesn't change the fact that was the 8th boss, since you start on 1/8 not 0/8.
The only way to need to beat 9 bosses before winning is if you buy the voucher that lowers your ante.

[kolz4ever]

Something i always wonder since i can't ever win no matter how good the hand is. Get's boring really losing constantly cause of rng. Haven't played in countless months because of that and tried one game and see the same nonsense so uninstalled again and back to other games lol.

[BobbyRunout]

Originally posted by kolz4ever:

Something i always wonder since i can't ever win no matter how good the hand is. Get's boring really losing constantly cause of rng. Haven't played in countless months because of that and tried one game and see the same nonsense so uninstalled again and back to other games lol.

It's possible to win pretty consistently on at least the first couple of difficulty levels (and probably on later ones too, if you're much better than I am). Be patient and take your time - remember there's no clock - this is basically solitaire with fancy pixel art. Think through the probabilities when choosing which cards to discard / what hands to try to draw to. Be mindful of the cards you have left in your deck this round (you are always allowed to look) and how that affects those probabilities. Think also about making the hands that fit best with your jokers, and ideally that improve your jokers over time. When choosing which jokers / vouchers / booster packs to spend money on, think less about what's good in isolation and more about what you need for THIS run and what fits best with the purchases you've already made. There's lots more to think about (including plenty of stuff I'm not even aware I should be thinking about, I'm sure), but there's no need to try to figure out EVERYTHING at once.

The RNG can definitely make runs a lot easier or harder, but try not to use the "bad luck" explanation - even though it's sometimes true, thinking this way won't help you grow.

[Dan]

Originally posted by kolz4ever:

Something i always wonder since i can't ever win no matter how good the hand is. Get's boring really losing constantly cause of rng. Haven't played in countless months because of that and tried one game and see the same nonsense so uninstalled again and back to other games lol.

The biggest trick to realise about Balatro is - if you're relying on "how good the hand is", you've already lost.
You can easily win the game using nothing but Pair or High Card - in fact in many cases that can be one of the most reliable approaches.

"Variance" is your enemy, and the thing you want to minimize (and pair/high-card comes with a free helping of already-low/zero variance). You need to skew things using jokers/planet-upgrades/etc so that you're all-but-guaranteed to get a powerful hand come up every time you're dealt cards... and that's a lot easier to do if you've stacked your jokers around pairs - you'll generally get a pair come up with no more than one discard, and of course, you'll *always* have a choice of high-cards.

By comparison, if you're trying to fish for a straight-flush... with a standard deck, that might take 20+ discards/plays to find... but you only have 4 or 5... so that's pretty much a guaranteed game-over, unless you have some hyper-specific build set up to force it to happen predictably and frequently.

Another example - if you can get the joker that makes hearts/diamonds and clubs/spades count as the same suit, and raise you hand size to 9 cards... well, now you're literally *guaranteed* a flush every single hand. Variance (aka "RNG") is eliminated entirely... and now you can focus on maximizing the value of those hands.

[kolz4ever]

Originally posted by Dan:

Originally posted by kolz4ever:

Something i always wonder since i can't ever win no matter how good the hand is. Get's boring really losing constantly cause of rng. Haven't played in countless months because of that and tried one game and see the same nonsense so uninstalled again and back to other games lol.

The biggest trick to realise about Balatro is - if you're relying on "how good the hand is", you've already lost.
You can easily win the game using nothing but Pair or High Card - in fact in many cases that can be one of the most reliable approaches.

"Variance" is your enemy, and the thing you want to minimize (and pair/high-card comes with a free helping of already-low/zero variance). You need to skew things using jokers/planet-upgrades/etc so that you're all-but-guaranteed to get a powerful hand come up every time you're dealt cards... and that's a lot easier to do if you've stacked your jokers around pairs - you'll generally get a pair come up with no more than one discard, and of course, you'll *always* have a choice of high-cards.

By comparison, if you're trying to fish for a straight-flush... with a standard deck, that might take 20+ discards/plays to find... but you only have 4 or 5... so that's pretty much a guaranteed game-over, unless you have some hyper-specific build set up to force it to happen predictably and frequently.

Another example - if you can get the joker that makes hearts/diamonds and clubs/spades count as the same suit, and raise you hand size to 9 cards... well, now you're literally *guaranteed* a flush every single hand. Variance (aka "RNG") is eliminated entirely... and now you can focus on maximizing the value of those hands.

For the last part you would really think so. And that's what I thought when I had that plus other great big bonuses and some how manged finding a way to lose still. I've tried every combination I could come up with so yeah I'm done. Once I get to that point I never have fun and over something like poker it's not worth it lol. I've seen games where one card would make those flames go high and then rng kicks in the same exact play won't work lol.. 😂