15 hours and still not won onec at white stakes

[Dreadgear]

It's a very fun game and i enjoy every bit of it no doubt but i don't understand what i'm missing.

I try to align my cards and jokers in order so Chips> + mult > x Multi
I try to play my poker hands around the jokers that i have available i try to make bank to always have 25$+ at a time
I try to always planet upgrade my most played hands (usually 2 pairs or Flush)

I just don't understand how some people had no trouble with getting a single win within an hour or two and i'm 15 deep and still stuck at 7 or 8 Ante

[malogoss]

Maybe you are skipping too many blinds. Try not skipping at all, see what difference it makes.

Maybe you are discarding too aggressively, or more likely, not aggressively enough. That leads to playing more hands and earning less money. For example, the first small blind should always be defeated in one hand only. The same idea applies to all blinds, play as few hands as possible.

Maybe you focus a bit too much on celestial packs. It's hard to judge that without seeing you play. But without Telescope, is it worth it to spend 4, 6 or $8 on a pack that could miss your main hand? Sometimes yes. At other times, not so much.

Maybe you are not aggressive enough when it comes to selling jokers. A full lineup is good, but selling some to replace them is good too.

Maybe you are not buying enough arcana packs. If you are really having a big bankroll, The Hermit is your friend. You'll very rarely hit a pack that does nothing for you.

Maybe you need to evaluate jokers differently. Economy jokers are important. Many jokers that don't affect score directly can have a huge impact on the game. Maybe you like to have 3 jokers that give + mult but a single one that scales would be better. All in all, few jokers are useless. Of course, Scéance is very niche and Loyalty Card is not too good, but that's about it. Other jokers are worth considering.

If you are making it to ante 7-8, then it's just a matter of time. Of course you'll get better, but 2-3 minor changes would likely make you win 1 in 3 runs. Once you'll flip that switch, it will all feel easy at white stake.

Good luck.

[Lint6]

Originally posted by Dreadgear:

I just don't understand how some people had no trouble with getting a single win within an hour or two and i'm 15 deep and still stuck at 7 or 8 Ante

I didn't get my first win until I was 12 hours or so in.

It really does come down to how the RNG treats you. I started a run with the Nebula Deck that I intended to be a Flush run. Thanks to the Jokers I got, it wound up turning into a High Carc run that I lost on the Big Blind on Ante 11, not able to hit 14 million chips

[Pod]

I had my first win (and later more consistent wins) when doing a high card run. There's a good guide about it on here.

[snakeskip]

Originally posted by Dreadgear:

I just don't understand how some people had no trouble with getting a single win within an hour or two and i'm 15 deep and still stuck at 7 or 8 Ante

When you're making choices, are you following your intuition or are you doing some calculations? Do you actually calculate the effect of +Chip, +Mult or xMult before making the choice of picking up a Joker?

It's a very mathematical game. You're presented with many difficult choices. If you just follow your intuition, you're going to make a lot of suboptimal choices. Especially in the beginning, before developing your intuition.

Your chances of success are a lot better if you base at least some of your decisions more on calculations than just intuition. That doesn't mean you have to crunch numbers all the time. There are shortcuts. A good sense of arithmetics and probabilities helps. A degree in mathematics or statistics helps a lot.

Balatro University does a great job explaining the details (and the mathematics) of the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atVF4VLHks4&list=PLdNGt-ihEAcEY9VVwmqT4V80xWG9ZWA14

Originally posted by Lint6:

It really does come down to how the RNG treats you.

Once you get going, you're going to beat White Stake almost every time.

[Ace]

Originally posted by Dreadgear:

It's a very fun game and i enjoy every bit of it no doubt but i don't understand what i'm missing.

I try to align my cards and jokers in order so Chips> + mult > x Multi
I try to play my poker hands around the jokers that i have available i try to make bank to always have 25$+ at a time
I try to always planet upgrade my most played hands (usually 2 pairs or Flush)

I just don't understand how some people had no trouble with getting a single win within an hour or two and i'm 15 deep and still stuck at 7 or 8 Ante

Much like real poker, you can play optimally and still lose through no fault of your own.
Anyone telling you otherwise is delusional. That's literally the nature of card games.

Sometimes there is simply not enough viable jokers to make a build, or you run into Fish early or you just straight up lose because of 5 discards still not giving you a single playable hand on The "One hand" boss.

Honestly the bosses just kinda ruin the fun by being unwarranted "Joker dps checks".

[senitewolf]

Originally posted by Cross †:

Originally posted by Dreadgear:

It's a very fun game and i enjoy every bit of it no doubt but i don't understand what i'm missing.

I try to align my cards and jokers in order so Chips> + mult > x Multi
I try to play my poker hands around the jokers that i have available i try to make bank to always have 25$+ at a time
I try to always planet upgrade my most played hands (usually 2 pairs or Flush)

I just don't understand how some people had no trouble with getting a single win within an hour or two and i'm 15 deep and still stuck at 7 or 8 Ante

Much like real poker, you can play optimally and still lose through no fault of your own.
Anyone telling you otherwise is delusional...

Honestly the bosses just kinda ruin the fun by being unwarranted "Joker dps checks".

That's not what this is about, though. Nobody said "If you know how to play you win lowest difficulty 100% of the time".
However if you have a grasp on what to look for you will win more games than you lose, no matter what jokers and bosses show up.
And while there are a few bosses I question the point of, generally all they do (on lowest difficulty) is making you aware of different builds that exist, adapt a little and keep it from being too much of an auto-play.
Of course if you do not read the game at all and always go for spades flush build even if there are no jokers for it and the boss countering hasn't shown up, they might end your run (not saying OP is doing that, just an example). But a simple two pairs strategy combined with whatever scaling joker you can find, a simple multiplier and 3 other w/e jokers that buff and give a bit of money will get you through ante 8 more often than not.

[snakeskip]

Originally posted by Cross †:

Much like real poker, you can play optimally and still lose through no fault of your own.
Anyone telling you otherwise is delusional. That's literally the nature of card games.

Call me delusional but I think statistically perfect play will beat White Stake every time. The developer also thinks that's the case.

You can definitely imagine an impossible seed. But the number of imaginable seeds is vastly greater than the number of actual seeds. It's possible that all actual seeds are winnable (with a statistically perfect play). And I think that's the case.

There is a thread for unwinnable seeds here. No one has been able to produce one. It's safe to say that impossible seeds are at least extremely rare. I don't think I've ever faced one. And I don't think I will ever find one.