Does it teach you how to play poker?

[Sh. Fred]

I’ve never once in my life played poker.
Only played solitaire as a kid on XP.

I do love card games and enjoyed Slay the Spire and Inscryption, and to some extent Hearthstone, but I do hate Blizzard.

I’ve been looking for a fun game that teaches you poker while not being all dry and boring.

Unfortunately Poker Night 2 was pulled off Steam a ling time ago.
So is this it?

If I end up on a poker table in a European casino, as I order a Martini and enter a life-or-death game against the one-eyed supervillain, will Baltaro help me kick his ass?

[Dooly]

The most it'll teach you is about possible poker hands. Otherwise, it just builds on the foundations of poker, it won't teach you the basics of poker.

[Angry Alfonse]

When most people refer to poker these days, they're referring to Texas Hold'em. This will not teach you how to play Texas Hold'em.

However, poker can more generally refer to any card game in which:

-players bet money against each other
-players have personally dealt cards (a "hand")
-players may optionally have shared cards, such as in Texas Hold'em
-players must combine cards to make "poker hands," which are 10 standardized groupings of cards, ranked by the probability of their occurrence, and
-the player with the highest ranked hand wins

The rankings of these hands are: high card, pair, two pair, three of a kind, straight, flush, full house, four of a kind, straight flush, and royal flush, in order of decreasing occurrence and increasing value.

This game will teach you how to play a specific kind of poker -- # Card Draw. # Card Draw (usually 5 Card Draw or 7 Card Draw, but 8+ Card Draw in the case of Balatro) is played by dealing each player a certain number of cards. The players can decide which cards to keep and which to discard, and then they are dealt new cards to replace the ones discarded (ex. discard 4, you get 4 new cards). The goal is to figure out the highest poker hand that is likely given the cards you've been dealt, and then discard cards that won't work towards that hand, in the hopes that the replacement cards you're dealt will complete the hand.

Of course Balatro isn't standard 8 Card Draw, but it'll give you a basic understanding of the game. That being said, if you're looking to play Texas Hold'em, that is a totally different game which involves multi-phase rounds, betting strategies, bluffing, folding, and more. The only skill you'll learn from Balatro that would be transferrable would be the ability to memorize and recognize the 10 poker hands and their order of rank.

[Kigurumi (((魔神)))]

yes this does teach you poker, don't listen to the creeps.

[ْSmoke™]

no it doesn't, this only take the basic poker hands, rest of the game is building a good deck of jokers.

[Sh. Fred]

Thanks everyone for the replies.

I’ll give it a go regardless, it’ll be a fun card game anyway.

[kaibarnard]

It will teach you a little, the frustration and futility of chasing an inside straight is universal