Balatro Poker

Here are some potential rules for a game called "Balatro Poker" where players will play poker with custom-crafted hands boosted by effect-giving "jokers."

Death Match 2A: Balatro Poker

In this Death Match, both players will start with 50 chips and 4 dollars, and aim to steal all their opponent's chips to win the game.

This game takes place in rounds, which each round being comprised of three distinct phases: the hand phase, the betting phase, and the shop phase.

♦️ Hand Phase

In the hand phase, players will draw 8 cards from their deck and choose 5 cards to form their hand. If players are unsatisfied with the cards they have drawn, they have one chance to discard up to 5 cards and draw new cards.

Both players start the game with the standard 52-card poker deck. The deck is only ever reshuffled and reset once all cards have been drawn or seen and only at the end of the hand phase. That is, if a player has 6 cards left in their deck at the start of the hand phase, they must craft a hand out of only those 6 cards.

If a player is unable to form a valid 5-card hand, they will enter into the betting phase without a valid hand and will automatically lose.

Once a player submits a valid hand, a score will be calculated depending on the type of hand they form and the cards they used to form it. The base chips and mult of a hand are determined by the type of hand they play, which is summarized in the attached image below. The description for these hands can be found in https://balatrogame.fandom.com/wiki/Poker_Hands; if a hand satisfies multiple hand types, the higher hand type on the image takes precedent.

Once the base chips and mult are decided, each card played that contributes to the hand adds another of chips equal to the card's value to the base chips. Cards 2-10 have their nominal values; JQK all have value 10, and A are worth 11. For example, if you play an AAA92, you have played a three of a kind with aces, and thus your chips starts with 30 and gets 11x3=33 added to it for 63.

In addition, any jokers or extra scoring modifiers you have activate and are added to the calculation at this time. Your final score is your chips times your mult.

🪙 Betting Phase

In the betting phase, players will take turns betting on their hands. At the beginning of the betting phase, both players will ante 2 chips. The betting phase then has two sub-phases of its own — the reveal phase and the gamble phase.

During the reveal phase, players choose a card from their hand to reveal to their opponent.

Next, players will then use this information to bet in the gamble phase. The DMO gets to choose if they want to bet first or second in the first ever betting phase; in every subsequent betting phase, the player who won the previous betting phase must go first. Players can check (keep their current bid), raise (raise the bid), or fold (forfeit this betting phase). Players can keep raising until both players choose a number to match on. Essentially, it's poker.

The reveal phase and gamble phase happen repeatedly until either 3 cards are revealed or both players have gone all-in.

If neither player has folded by the time 3 cards each have been revealed, all cards are revealed and the winner of the betting phase is the player with the higher score. The winner of a round gets 1 dollar per 2 chips they put into the pot that round. The loser of a round gets 1 dollar per 5 chips they put into the pot that round. The winner of the round also collects all chips in the pot.

🃏 Shop Phase

In the shop phase, players will buy upgrades and jokers to add to their inventory. At the start of the shop phase, 3 items in the shop will be revealed. Then, the loser of the previous betting phase gets to first choose to buy one thing from the shop (or to pass and buy nothing at all). After the loser visits the shop, the winner of the previous betting phase also can visit to buy one item or to pass.

There will be a variety of effects to buy in the shop, but the most important of them all are jokers, which will dramatically increase the scoring of your hands. You may only have 5 jokers at a time; if you try to buy a sixth joker, you must sell a joker you have. Selling a joker does not give you any extra dollars.

⏩ Ending the Game

After every 10 rounds, both players will have 10 of their chips confiscated and turned into 5 dollars.

⏰ Timing

Players will have 3 minutes for the hand phase. Players will have 60 seconds for revealing cards and 60 seconds for choosing to check/raise/fold. Players will have 90 seconds during the shop phase. If you run out of time for the reveal or hand phase, your actions will be randomly chosen. If you run out of time to check/raise/fold, you automatically fold. If you run out of time in the shop, you will automatically pass and not buy anything.

👑 Winning

If a player successfully reduces their opponent to having 0 chips, they win the Death Match.

Clarification: The winner of the betting phase also collects all chips in the pot.

Clarification: Players are allowed to rearrange their jokers during the hand phase.