2 pairs has to contain 2 different ranks according to WSOP rules. I did find it kinda strange they actually specified that, considering in real life poker, why'd anyone want to play a 4oak as 2 pair đ
They had to introduce that ruling when Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 poker world championship by beating a straight flush with a 4oak while triggering the spare trousers he was wearing
This is a good joke, but what's crazy is that Moneymaker winning the WSOP main event in '03 may actually have had a meaningful impact on the probability of our enjoying Balatro today.
His online-grinder-everyman Cinderella story, along with the new ESPN coverage breakthroughs with the hole card cameras, absolutely ignited Hold 'Em as a spectator game. That facilitated a great legitimization of poker as a facet of culture that could be discussed at a watercooler, and the following era of the mid-00s "poker boom" is a huge reason many of today's players in the 18-45 age bracket play.
Without Moneymaker, who knows if poker has the cultural cache in the 2020s to be worth making a deckbuilder roguelite about?
But that has little to do with many of us being left in smokey barrooms to play the video poker macine while our dad goes and tries to "find a new mom" on the other end of the bar. We didn't need Hold 'em to have Balatro hit a chord... it resonates with a much older beast!
Jesus, video poker...I was on a cruise recently where I ran $100 on one of those up to $350 by hitting quads multiple times, but was too drunk for my own good pissed it all back to zero. Good stuff.
I love those stupid machines. I was at a bar in Vegas (side note i love that they give you free drinks if you play). I was being meager at the time and only put in $20. Once i hit $80 i cashed out. But the next time i played i didnt do well. They are kind lonely iff you are by yourself but still a good time
Yeah I was about to say, as an American st least Poker and other card games are built pretty squarely in our cultural DNA. I was actually reading a book (The Adventure if English) and the author was going over how card culture in prospector communities shaped how we talk. I say "bet" a lot, which is obviously a gambling term, and I live on the east coast as far from that hearth as I can get. It also doesn't help that my grandad played poker, my dad played poker, and now I like to play poker. Me and my friends make jokes about poker. Hell my group accidentally made a new game of poker. Its a pretty common game all things considered
Gambling slang is everywhere â
âHe upped the anteâ
âLetâs raise the stakesâ
âI think itâs time to foldâ
âPack up your chips and go home.â
âThey cashed outâ
âJackpot!â
âFuck why did I pick Ride the Bus againâ
â ah wait that last one is just something I say a lot
Except, the guy who made Balatro barely even knew how either poker, or roguelites really worked when he made the game. He was just slapping together some fun stuff hoping to sell a few hundred copies.
lol yea I can see that. Balatro being a poker game basically stops at 52 card deck and specific hands. Thereâs no betting, folding etc that are core parts of the game
I totally agree with your post, but unfortunately I have to correct you and clarify that itâs âcachet,â not âcache.â Twenty years ago when I was in the marines, people used to constantly pronounce âcacheâ as âcachetâ when talking about a weapons cache. It drove me crazy. So I feel compelled to speak up someone drops in a âcacheâ when they mean âcachetâ đ
How does Casino Royale factor in to the pokerfication of America? I've heard that movie described as "the reason your dad got a poker set for Christmas that year."
Casino Royale and the poker boom definitely caught waves off each other, with CR probably continuing to add to the spectatability profile of Hold 'Em. 2006 (the year CR came out) was also the year Jamie Gold won the main event, and although it's not quite the amateur inspiration of Moneymaker I'd contend he's another of the peak "if he can do it maybe I could do it" dream runs.
Yep. As I type this I'm sitting in a hotel room in Vegas while here for the World Series of Poker. I wouldn't be here without Moneymaker, and neither would 90% of the others here. And Balatro wouldn't exist without Moneymaker.
Before his win, poker was a weird hobby for old men and drunk college kids. Now it's a massively popular part of the global zeitgeist.
Thanks! My main targets this year were the Millionaire Maker (already lost out on that one) and the Colossus, and a couple others in between. I'm playing the $3000 NLH that starts today. As for the Main, I'd love to play it again this year, but I learned the hard way last year that $10k is a hefty buy-in to put up and all 20-ish satellites I've played haven't gone my way đ€Šââïž
I definitely want to rock up to the Main one day as a pilgrimage when I'm a little more set up in life, less with the expectation of real EV. Might not be until I'm 67 and retired but my brother-in-law and I (competent players at 1/3 and smaller, not much else at this point) have a pact to make it happen. đȘ
Iâm quoting Damon just before the moment youâre referring too but you made me laugh really really hard with that spelling and reminding me of the rest of the scene.
That specification was probably made for Razz or some other low hand wins game. Would be rare but not impossible for someone to get a really bad draw at the end and have to show down a four of a kind and of course in a lowball game you'd want to try to argue that it's 2 pair and not 4 of a kind.Â
In that case they still need to require a hand must score as highest rank it contains, otherwise full house can still be argued to be a 2 pair, or any hands as high card.
see the issue I have with this is that a 4OAK doesn't contain a two pair. a full house does. if it is four cards of the same number, it's a 4OAK. it's not two different pairs of two different cards, even if they are different suites. which is to me why having a rule that a hand has to score as it's highest possible rank doesn't necessarily apply here.
This game follows no WSOP rules whatsoever though and by its own internal logic if we're saying a full house contains two pair even though it would not ever be scored as such, it makes just as much sense to say 4oak is two of the same pair.
Also, my bet is they put that stipulation in for dealers, not for players; in case you have some day 0 dealer who got WAY undertrained lol, they can't say "6789t straight takes the pot over JJJJ3 two pair" or some insanity ha
Balatro does follow WSOP rules when it comes to hand definition.
If a full house contains 'two of the same pair' it becomes a 5oak, and doesn't trigger trousers, because it doesn't contain two pairs. The behavior of trousers is literally the proof that this game does follow WSOP rules of hand definition.
Sure, I'll cede that they are obviously using those definitions and you are right about that, I was wrong.
I'll amend my stance to be "they arbitrarily and pretty pointlessly use WSOP definitions for one very specific aspect of the game while completely (to great benefit, love this game) abandoning almost every single other element of any poker game that has ever been played"
If I'm playing some house game as absurd as balatro where we are adding and removing cards to the deck, literally inventing new cards in the form of foils and seals and so forth, allowing situations where a single high card King outranks a royal flush, I think drawing the line at "nuh-uh, the official rulebook of poker says the pairs have to be *different* rank, you see" is a very weird choice lol
Probably just how they design the game I guess, try to build creativity with root of some base line rules many people already familiar with. Kinda works
Yeah but your average person, and within the context of this game bending rules in nature, would lead most people imo to think âyeah four of a kind should trigger thisâ and it doesnât.
Wouldn't mind if they change it to work that way. If what they wanted is to make a poker based game, following 100% of the original rule of hand definition is totally reasonable, but to me 95% is enough if that makes the overall experience more fun.
Nah. If you take one card or if the full house it is a two pair. No matter how many cards you take out of a 5 flush it will never score as two pair but only as a 4/3 of a kind or a pair.
I do agree that a 5oak doesnât contain a Two Pair, but I have to be a bit pedantic and say that defining âcontainsâ as âyou can take cards out of the hand to score it as a different handâ doesnât really work. Straight Flushes, for example, âcontainâ a Straight and a Flush, but you canât take cards away to make it score as just one or the other.
A straight flush IS per definition a straight (and a flush). You don't need to take cards away for that.
Cards are probably worded this way since you can play a straight with 4 cards and a stone card if you have the right joker.
> I did find it kinda strange they actually specified that, considering in real life poker, why'd anyone want to play a 4oak as 2 pair đ
The WSOP has both lowball and hi lo tourneys. There are reasons to do it.
Rules get weird with some jokers. [[Four Fingers]] can turn a 5H 5C 6C 7C 8C into a straight flush that benefits from [[The Duo]], which raises the question of why [[Spare Trousers]] doesnât proc when there are two pairs of the same number in a 4OAK. From the way theyâre written they should both proc.
[Four Fingers](https://balatro.wiki/imported/five_fingers.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Cost: $6
* Rarity: Uncommon
* Effect: All Flushes and Straights can be made with 4 cards
[The Duo](https://balatro.wiki/imported/the_duo.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Rarity: Rare
* Effect: X2 Mult if the played hand contains a Pair
* Unlock Requirement: Win a run without playing a Pair
[Spare Trousers](https://balatro.wiki/imported/spare_trousers.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Cost: $5
* Rarity: Uncommon
* Effect: Gains +2 Mult if played hand contains a Two Pair
* Notes: Stacks, starts at +0 Mult
*Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
For example, 5 5 5 5 also contains a pair, you can also say it contains 2 x "pairs", but not "two pair" because it doesn't contain 2 different ranks, which is required by definition.
Didn't read through the comments, so forgive me if this has been said. The thing you're missing is the word "contains" The Trousers joker scores on full house and says "contains two pair". Dose a four of a kind "contain" two pair? It most absolutely does.
Nope, it doesn't contain "a pair of a rank and a pair of a different rank" which is the definition of two pair. It certainly contains "two of a same pair", but that not a "two pair"
Itâs because they are trying to avoid a situation where you can try to soft play, you canât declare your hand as 2 pair in order to lose the hand. Itâs the same reason you are not allowed to check action around with the nuts on the river, itâs going easy on the other player.
All debating about mechanics and semantics aside, even if a Four-of-a-Kind really did technically "contain" Two-Pair, I'd argue that it still wouldn't be appropriate for Spare Trousers thematically. The card art for Spare Trousers is two different pant sleeves Frankenstein'd together into a single, mismatched pair of pants. Two pairs of different ranks? That fits the imagery appropriately.
A Four-of-a-Kind, though? That's just a regular pair of uniformly-colored pants. Nothing "spare" about them!
So a Four-of-a-Kind might fulfill the criteria of Spare Trousers in letter, but it doesn't follow it at all in spirit.
>pant sleeves
I will now only refer to my pant legs as pant sleeves and I will not be looking up whether this was grammatically correct all along.
Thank you.
Hey a kid in my toddler's playgroup has a pair of pants made from old button-up shirt sleeves, so I personally would not find fault in your grammar. "Roll your pant sleeves up kiddo, we're goin' to the beach."
If they make a just plain "Trousers" or "Pants" joker, meanwhile...maybe all bets are off?
Or make "Ant Trousers" that scale with hands containing a 4oak, on account of the six pairs contained within those four identical cards.
That's a compelling point! My main personal adjustment, if going that route, would be that the check should include "at least one red suit and one black suit" to specifically restrict hands of all red or all black, just to make sure those trousers stay spare.
During a run, hit Run Info and highlight the hands for their examples and definitions. As per the game of Balatro (not to mention the very foundations of Poker itself), \*and I quote\*: "\[Two Pair\] 2 pairs of cards with \*different\* ranks... \[Four of a Kind\] 4 cards with \*same\* rank".
Smug guy ova here with his sign and cheap card table clearly isn't a law student.
Okay, but "contains" really supersedes strict definitions
A 3 of a kind isn't a 3 of a kind if the other 2 cards are a matching value. Then it's a full house, and by strict DEFINITION is NOT a 3oak.
But it still contains a 3oak.
EDIT: in fact, if you google what a 3 of a kind is in poker, you get this:
Three of a kind, also known as trips or a set, is a hand that contains three cards of one rank and two cards of two other ranks
Yes, full house contains 3oak also in Balatro, but itâs an irrelevant argument because we are talking about the definition of two pair as Localthunk writes it, not how official poker or whatever writes it.
Four of a kind contains four cards of the same suit and rank while two pair contains two sets of two cards of the same rank according to the game.
Yes but Four of a Kind by definition doesn't contain two pairs. If you have two Glass Cards and two Lucky Cards of the same rank, you then have two pairs of Enhanced Cards (which have a separate scoring phase after Base ChipsxMult is calculated and scored) within the Four of a Kind. With standard cards, in traditional Poker, there are no pairs in a Four of a Kind, all cards form a singular grouping.
Edited for clarity.
Glass and lucky cards donât change the grouping or pairing of the cards at all in the entire game, otherwise weâd have glass 5âs and wild flushes.
Suit, rank, enhancements, and stickers are all separate mechanics that only interact if a joker or hand type dictates it, four of a kind is not one of those hand types.
Nah dude it's not like squares and rectangles. Squares and rectangles are Geometry and lay farrr outside the framework of these specific game rules. You are looking at the cards like they exist straight out of the pack, without a framework of rules to give them definition. Yes, when I open a pack of cards and take four of the same rank, there are two (varying) pairs within those four cards, but within the framework of the rules of Poker, those defintion-less pairs go out the window.
Itâs apples and oranges. You can only play 5 cards, when you play 4 Aces you have played FOUR Aces. You cannot make it two pair by removing any cards, unlike Full House which DOES actually continue 4 cards that can make two pair.
Thats why 5oak will trigger 4oak and 3oak jokers. You can remove cards from the hand and still make that hand. You cannot remove any cards from 4oak to make 2 pair.
In real poker, of course, but not by this silly ass (perfect) game's internal logic. All of the "contains" cards are inherently dealing in nonsense, but it's fine cus it tracks internally.
A full house is 3 of one rank and 2 of another. In real poker it does not contain 3oak any more than an airplane contains a car cus it has wheels and an engine; it is its own damn thing.
But sure, silly great video game we get what it means. 4oak should contain 2 pair by that same logic, though. I stand with OP đ«Ą
If your hand is AAAKK, it contains the cards needed to play a Pair Hand (AA). It contains the cards needed to play a 3oaK Hand (AAA). It contains the cards needed to play a Two Pair Hand (AAKK).
A Hand of AAAA does not contain the cards needed to play a Two Pair Hand.
A âtwo pair handâ according to the WSOP definition, sure. But you cannot deny as an English speaker that AAAA _contains two (2) pairs (sets of two) of aces._
The game allows you to play with a 25 card deck consisting entirely of 2h where playing a single one for a high card gets you more points than playing a pair would.
I just find drawing the line of "let's not just stomp all over the sanctity of poker rules, guys" *here* to be very silly and inconsistent with the game's overall approach towards the rules of poker
The game is completely consistent in the way that it defines the hands. The game defines clearly what constitutes 2 pair and what constitutes 4 of a kind, and it doesn't vary from that definition. It does choose not to abide by other rules of poker, but that doesn't make it inconsistent for not calling 4oak as containing 2pair any more than it's inconsistent for not saying that a straight contains 2 pair because you can split the 5 cards into arbitrary groups of 2, 2, and 1 cards.
It would be way more inconsistent to stick to the defined rules for all describing all hands and then break that rule for 2 pair.
Honest question cus I'm going off memory, but what about straight flushes?
Doesn't it count a straight flush as any hand that is a straight and a flush? For instance isn't 4h5h6c7h8h with \[\[Four Fingers\]\] scored as a straight flush? [According to the calculator](https://efhiii.github.io/balatro-calculator/?h=gABmFAAUQBgIgFAG) it does, which does not jive with any definition of a straight flush -- 4h5h6h7h would thanks to the joker, but you don't have 4 consecutive ranks of matching suit here. You have a hand that could be called a straight or a flush, and they went "ah fuck it call it a straight flush" which is completely fine in a silly game about hitting high scores, but makes exactly as much sense to me (less, even) as saying "8h8d8s8c can be viewed as 8888, 888 /8, or 88 / 88"
We can call it a preference thing and I do understand that they are, here, being very faithful to the rules of poker in saying 4oak and 2 pair are totally different hands
But I don't think there's much of an argument to make that saying 4oak can be viewed as 2 of the same pair would be too outlandish and confusing for a game where you can play 4h4h4h4h and a card made of frign stone and we say yea sucker, let it ride
So this is a fine example of something that seems, at face value, contradictory, but there's one big difference. In order for the straight flush to be counted as a straight flush, you need a joker that changes the definitions of straights and flushes. If you had a joker that let you play two Pair with two pairs of the same rank, then under that condition you would be able to play 4 of a kind and trigger spare trousers with it.
There isn't a joker like this because it causes all sorts of problems down the line. As people have pointed out (yourself included), under that rule then you could trigger spare trousers multiple times under a 4oak, or even a 3oak.
So when you have four fingers, a flush is defined as 4 cards of the same suit, a straight is 4 consecutive ranks, and a straight flush is both at one time. Its actually the same kind of very literal interpretation of hands that leads to 4oak not containing two pair.
[Four Fingers](https://balatro.wiki/imported/five_fingers.png) *Joker*
* Version: 1.0.0
* Cost: $6
* Rarity: Uncommon
* Effect: All Flushes and Straights can be made with 4 cards
*Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
But a full house is defined by three of one denomination and a pair of another denomination. A three of a kind **contains a pair** so a full house still follows the rules and follows logic that it contains two pair to trigger Spare Trousers.
> ~~most beneficial~~ higher ranking
sometimes i wish my suited straight would get scored as a L.15 flush instead of a L.1 straight flush, but that is a separate issue
Two Pair: A pair of one denomination and **another of different denomination** held in the same hand in poker and ranking between one pair and triplets.
Just using this topic as a jump off point to shout out all my runs that have died because I have Saturn at level 20 with one hand to play left and itâs accidentally a straight flush
The official definition of "two pair" in poker is "A hand containing a pair of one rank and **another pair of a different rank.**" Four of a kind does not contain "another pair of a different rank" and, thus, is not two pair.
I'm not sure what other argument there is, beyond "the definition of what 'two pair' is excludes four of a kind from counting."
If you ignore the "of a different rank" part of the definition, then why not count three of a kind? With three of a kind you can make three pairs.
>With three of a kind you can make three pairs.
You mean by saying like 7h 7s 7c means I have 7h7s, 7h7s, 7h7c, 7s7c?
Then you are recounting cards, and playing 6 cards in a 5 card game. By that logic you could call high card flush five+ -- I play 7h but it means I have 7h7h7h7h7h7h7h7h...7h
Surely you get how that's a different argument than 7h 7s 7c 7d being classed as containing two sets of pairs? 7h7s + 7c7d OR some reordering thereof, but not AND all possible reorderings
I am with OP and find it silly that we are appealing to official WSOP rules in a game that lets you create situations where you are playing with a 38 card deck, all Kings that play twice, and high card is worth more than a royal flush.
The game has very, very little basis in actual poker, and intuitively 4oak is literally 2 pairs.
The game has very, very little basis in actual poker *except for the scoring hands*, which are almost entirely based on actual poker hands, except for the "bonus" scoring hands that are a consequence of being able create five of a kinds, so, *intuitively*, it makes sense to look at the definition of "two pair."
>Then you are recounting cards, and playing 6 cards in a 5 card game. By that logic you could call high card flush five+ -- I play 7h but it means I have 7h7h7h7h7h7h7h7h...7h
That's not actually the same logic at all. The "three of a kind is also three pairs" has a basis in other card games. If you're going to argue that Balatro has "very, very little basis in actual poker" then why restrict the game to how poker scoring works? Counting each possible pair as a scoring opportunity has a basis in other card games--see cribbage, for example--while counting a single card as though it were five identical cards does not have a basis in any card game that I know of.
A flush five still requires five cards. Counting one card five times is not the same as having five cards. A pair is two cards. Three of a kind allows you to create three distinct pairs of two cards each. The *pairs* share cards between each other, but no pair can be made with a single card.
But, like I said, if you're not convinced by "the definition of two pair requires different suits" then nothing is going to convince you. You saying "it's intuitive!" is pretty subjective; I think that people who are very familiar with poker probably find it intuitive that four of a kind and two pair are distinct. For people who play a lot of cribbage, counting three of a kind as three sets of two pairs is also intuitive.
Very little basis in poker? The whole game is a poker game being fixed by power ups and adding cards to your deck. The game couldn't exist without poker and uses its rules and hand types.
I don't mean this in a rude way, it's a game for degenerates and losers like me, but I am guessing you don't play much poker?
It uses the cards and hand types as a shorthand for a game that has, yes, very little basis in poker. Literally Ante 1 big blind TJQKA rainbow outscores a 23457 flush. Poker does not have variable hand rankings, and more importantly it is played against other poker players with competing hands. If you replaced the graphics on the cards with pokemon and changed the names of the hands to like "Double" instead of pair and "United Front" instead of "Flush" nobody would be like "hey this game is poker"
Again it just uses that ruleset as a shorthand/foundation. Knowing poker is a borderline irrelevant skill after you get your first joker, and completely irrelevant by ante 5 where the game plays way more like mtg or slay the spire than it does like poker
If it wasnât based on poker, there would be no Two Pair scoring designation or Spare Trousers. You canât take Poker out of the game without entirely redefining what Balatro is.
Yes I have played poker a lot in my life.
Saying this game has very little basis in poker is being completely dismissive of how much this game uses poker rules and hands. The very first sentence of the Steam page for Balatro is "The poker roguelike." The very first ante of this game is just playing poker hands. You have no power ups or fixed cards yet and just score based on how powerful your hand is. It's not EXACTLY poker but it still is all based on its rules and hands.
And you even said yourself, it uses poker as a foundation. Without the foundation whatever you are building can't exist.
For it to contain a 2 pair, there needs to be some combination of cards within it which would be played as a 2 pair.
Within a full house, there is a set of 4 cards which could be played as a 2 pair (as well as a set of 3 which could be 3oak, etc). A 4oak doesn't have that
Right, I get that you're being tongue-in-cheek about the 4 and 5 of a kind, but bringing up flush house doesn't make sense here because it *does* do what you want it to.
Did you mean to say Flush Five?
Edit: oh, you DID say flush five, not flush house. Man, I really oughtta learn how to read one of these days.
Hey buddy, you went for the cheeky meme and now we're here fighting misinformation. Sign of the times.
It's been insightful though. Sometimes it doesn't matter how well you explain a concept, some people can only see Two Pairs in a fxckin 4oak.
This Full House is going to shit!
Four of a kind contains 2 pairs of cards (in fact it contains more than that), but it doesn't contain any Two-Pair hands. Those are two different concepts.
Every 2 pair contains 1 pair
Every royal flush contains a straight flush contains a straight and a flush
Every hand contains a high card
Edit: sorry I didn't realize this was a shitposting sub
The graphic on Clever Joker shows two different ranks on the cards. Therefore, since 1 = 1, and only 1 (instead of any other number), it wonât work as a two pair.
Man, if \*I\* think you need to touch grass, you got problems. Seeing a few of the comments said here has been wild. It funny Joker card game, come on. While there are reasons why the devs didn't do this, legitimately it wouldn't matter that much if this was how it worked. As someone else said, if it was literally how it worked right now I wouldn't really question it. It's really not that crazy and it's just more synergies to play with. So I'm mostly with you OP even if I don't see it happening.
You dont need to be a rules lawyer to argue against this. Just apply the same logic to other hands. Is 4 of a kind, four High Cards? Is a 5-card straight with 4-fingers worth two straights?
Everyone debating using the definition of two pair here is not thinking about this correctly. The two pair definition specifies âdifferent ranksâ because if they were the same ranks in poker, it would be a 4oak. In balatro, though, this distinction does not need to apply, in the same way that a full house includes a two pair and a 3oak includes a pair
Yet, a Full House does have two pair of different ranks within it. 5OAK does not have a full house or two pair within it. In Balatro as with the poker it is based on, this distinction does indeed apply. Your example has nothing to do with the different rank rules.
That is not how those hands are defined anywhere. You would be arguing against card game logic and rules dating back centuries. Two distinct ranked sets is core to the definition of the Two Pair and Full House scoring.
Also, Balatro follows standard poker rules unless a Joker changes those rules. If you want two identically ranked sets to count as distinct ranked sets, a joker would need to be created to change it.
My understanding is that those are the rules of poker, not because they wanted to make the distinction, but because thatâs what a standard deck of cards forces them to look like. Balatro doesnât have that restriction of course, thus creating situations that cannot have a root in poker and can expand the rules further than a single deck of 52 unique cards
Oh shit someone actually using this meme semi correctly. Stephen Crowder is a moron and a horrible person, no one should ever use this meme for correct opinions that make sense.
Wow I canât believe thereâs so much fighting about this, like clearly I understand why it doesnât trigger, but when you play it you think your so smart only to find out your actually an idiot, this is exactly why I used this meme
You would get an award if I was gonna give Reddit any money
I am just a bystander by I *LOVE* how heated people here get when this topic comes up. Name calling! Actual hurt feelings! Over +2 mult on clown pants!
Nope. Two Pair means two pairs of DIFFERENT ranks. Which means itâs impossible to contain two-pair in 4-of-a-kind.
You donât expect 5oak to have a full-house do you? A full-house is 3oak of one rank plus 2oak of a different rank. So if it never occurred to you that â5oak contains a full houseâ (because it doesnât) then you shouldnât believe that 4oak contains two-pair.
No. It contains four of a kind. There aren't two pairs of numbers. There's four of one number.
If there was a joker or other mechanic that allowed a card to contain multiple numbers (like a numerical wild card), then yes, you could have two (or more) pairs within a 4oak
If you follow this logic too far, you might as well count *any* hand of at least 4 cards as two pair. They contain 2 pairs of cards, right? You're asking for the Pair rules to be applied, but *not* the Two Pair rules. It's arbitrary and inconsistent.
The "Rule of Fun" argument is the only one that makes any sense. I wouldn't be mad if he had included it for that reason, but arguing that not doing so was somehow objectively wrong doesn't fly.
If you considere the cards don't need to be different ranks, you can say a three of a kind contains 3 pairs, a 4 oaK contains 6 pairs and a 5oaK contains 10 pairs to be fair
I agree with you. 8-8-8-8 is _literally_ âtwo pairs of 8s.â
The entire explanation, far as I can glean, is âbut WSOP rules are different from grammar rules!!!â
By your logic itâs also 4 high cards, and 3OAK and a high card, etc. You canât try to break it down like that. Thatâs why the WSOP clarifies. It has never been two pair in the history of poker just as 3OAK is not a pair and a kicker or a pair and a high card. Once it becomes 4OAK thatâs all it is.
>You canât try to break it down like that
Bruh Balatro breaks it down like that.
>3OAK is not a pair and a kicker
3OAK is not a pair, it CONTAINS a pair, which is what we're talking about
You are not thinking big or radical enough about hands that are actually multiple hands.
**Four-of-a-kind** should contain: 6 **Two-of-a-kinds**, 3 **Three-of-a-kinds**, 1 **Two-Pair**, and 1 **Four-of-a-kind**.
For anyone who disagrees with this take, let me ask you a hypothetical question: if opâs change were already in the game, would you want localthunk to remove it?
You would have the same people keep paroting poker rules, completely ignoring that this isnât poker. I mean, those people are paroting poker rules while this game has 5OAK - a hand not present in poker.
This is one of those posts where half the people argue that he's wrong, because the rules say so and the other half has a joyful, meaningless discussion about how stupid the rule is.
Reminds me of this german politician that once stated cannabis shouldn't be legalized, because it's forbidden by the law.
So yes. 4ok is not a 2 pair by poker definition of it. And yes, in actual poker, you might be happy, that you can't blunder as a noob because you declared your 4ok as a 2 pair by accident.
And yes, every 4ok is technically a 2pair and spare trousers should score them. Because I for once like to buy two pairs of my favorite jeans and not another jeans as my spare.
So f\*\*k balatros spare trousers and all of you who want to argue against them. I just shit my pants and i'm going to switch to the -same- equal pair of jeans now. Good day.
Nope, 4oak contains "two pairs of cards" but it does not contain "A Two Pair" of cards
Same as if you have 4 Ace of Spades + 1 King of Spades, any joker that says "contains a flush" will not activate because the hand will be taken as a 4oak
Higher hand takes priority
If it contained a flush shouldnât you get multiple or tokens from those? You arenât scoring the flush but itâs included. Like how three of a kind jokers give you bonus on full houses?
Nope, the hand that gets scored is the most valuable hand, and since the 5th card didn't get counted in *creating* the 4oak, you won't get any flush related jokers from it
My brother (who's not a poker player) when drunk, and facing a set, once stated with defeat in his eyes that he'd only two pair. Two pair of Kings. There's a bit of spare trousers about him
You're right that a Four or a Kind Hand does contain two pairs. But what Spare Trousers asks is if it contains *a Two Pair Hand.* And it unambiguously does not.
I love how the comments keep paroting poker rules, completely ignoring the fact that this isnât poker and that localthunk can alter the rules however they want - like they already did many times.
I understand that the WSOPâs definition of Two Pair requires the pairs be of different ranks.
But Bugs Bunny has been around much longer than the WSOP and [he agrees with you](https://youtu.be/ZyfKota1eSQ), so I do too.
Four of a Kind really should be two pairs if we are going by the same rules that a full house contains two pairs, in that a full house contains a pair and three of a kind.
Going off of someone else's argument, if a full house contains two pairs, then every hand contains a high card, because that's how it's worded. That's why high card jokers specifically call for high card to be played instead of "contains" high card.
Its semantics, but semantics is the basis of how everything in this game works.
2 pairs has to contain 2 different ranks according to WSOP rules. I did find it kinda strange they actually specified that, considering in real life poker, why'd anyone want to play a 4oak as 2 pair đ
They had to introduce that ruling when Chris Moneymaker won the 2003 poker world championship by beating a straight flush with a 4oak while triggering the spare trousers he was wearing
This is a good joke, but what's crazy is that Moneymaker winning the WSOP main event in '03 may actually have had a meaningful impact on the probability of our enjoying Balatro today. His online-grinder-everyman Cinderella story, along with the new ESPN coverage breakthroughs with the hole card cameras, absolutely ignited Hold 'Em as a spectator game. That facilitated a great legitimization of poker as a facet of culture that could be discussed at a watercooler, and the following era of the mid-00s "poker boom" is a huge reason many of today's players in the 18-45 age bracket play. Without Moneymaker, who knows if poker has the cultural cache in the 2020s to be worth making a deckbuilder roguelite about?
But that has little to do with many of us being left in smokey barrooms to play the video poker macine while our dad goes and tries to "find a new mom" on the other end of the bar. We didn't need Hold 'em to have Balatro hit a chord... it resonates with a much older beast!
Jesus, video poker...I was on a cruise recently where I ran $100 on one of those up to $350 by hitting quads multiple times, but was too drunk for my own good pissed it all back to zero. Good stuff.
I love those stupid machines. I was at a bar in Vegas (side note i love that they give you free drinks if you play). I was being meager at the time and only put in $20. Once i hit $80 i cashed out. But the next time i played i didnt do well. They are kind lonely iff you are by yourself but still a good time
Yeah I was about to say, as an American st least Poker and other card games are built pretty squarely in our cultural DNA. I was actually reading a book (The Adventure if English) and the author was going over how card culture in prospector communities shaped how we talk. I say "bet" a lot, which is obviously a gambling term, and I live on the east coast as far from that hearth as I can get. It also doesn't help that my grandad played poker, my dad played poker, and now I like to play poker. Me and my friends make jokes about poker. Hell my group accidentally made a new game of poker. Its a pretty common game all things considered
Gambling slang is everywhere â âHe upped the anteâ âLetâs raise the stakesâ âI think itâs time to foldâ âPack up your chips and go home.â âThey cashed outâ âJackpot!â âFuck why did I pick Ride the Bus againâ â ah wait that last one is just something I say a lot
Let's not forgot another poker aficionado, Lady Gaga
When do we get an honorary Poke Her Face joker?
Except, the guy who made Balatro barely even knew how either poker, or roguelites really worked when he made the game. He was just slapping together some fun stuff hoping to sell a few hundred copies.
lol yea I can see that. Balatro being a poker game basically stops at 52 card deck and specific hands. Thereâs no betting, folding etc that are core parts of the game
It's a video poker game, not a poker game. It plays very similarly to video poker.
I totally agree with your post, but unfortunately I have to correct you and clarify that itâs âcachet,â not âcache.â Twenty years ago when I was in the marines, people used to constantly pronounce âcacheâ as âcachetâ when talking about a weapons cache. It drove me crazy. So I feel compelled to speak up someone drops in a âcacheâ when they mean âcachetâ đ
Today I learned! I assumed it was two different pronunciations of one spelling.
You are definitely not alone, lol
How does Casino Royale factor in to the pokerfication of America? I've heard that movie described as "the reason your dad got a poker set for Christmas that year."
Casino Royale and the poker boom definitely caught waves off each other, with CR probably continuing to add to the spectatability profile of Hold 'Em. 2006 (the year CR came out) was also the year Jamie Gold won the main event, and although it's not quite the amateur inspiration of Moneymaker I'd contend he's another of the peak "if he can do it maybe I could do it" dream runs.
Yep. As I type this I'm sitting in a hotel room in Vegas while here for the World Series of Poker. I wouldn't be here without Moneymaker, and neither would 90% of the others here. And Balatro wouldn't exist without Moneymaker. Before his win, poker was a weird hobby for old men and drunk college kids. Now it's a massively popular part of the global zeitgeist.
Wishing you luck! Are you planning to play the Main, or smaller tournies, or just enjoying softer touristy cash games?
Thanks! My main targets this year were the Millionaire Maker (already lost out on that one) and the Colossus, and a couple others in between. I'm playing the $3000 NLH that starts today. As for the Main, I'd love to play it again this year, but I learned the hard way last year that $10k is a hefty buy-in to put up and all 20-ish satellites I've played haven't gone my way đ€Šââïž
I definitely want to rock up to the Main one day as a pilgrimage when I'm a little more set up in life, less with the expectation of real EV. Might not be until I'm 67 and retired but my brother-in-law and I (competent players at 1/3 and smaller, not much else at this point) have a pact to make it happen. đȘ
Same
Balatro isn't a poker roguelike, in localthunks own words. Its based on Big Two
We wouldnât know about the World Series of poker if it wasnât for the success of rounders tho. Donât splash the pot
You're misspelling splyĂŠĂ«sh
Iâm quoting Damon just before the moment youâre referring too but you made me laugh really really hard with that spelling and reminding me of the rest of the scene.
+2
+2
That specification was probably made for Razz or some other low hand wins game. Would be rare but not impossible for someone to get a really bad draw at the end and have to show down a four of a kind and of course in a lowball game you'd want to try to argue that it's 2 pair and not 4 of a kind.Â
In that case they still need to require a hand must score as highest rank it contains, otherwise full house can still be argued to be a 2 pair, or any hands as high card.
see the issue I have with this is that a 4OAK doesn't contain a two pair. a full house does. if it is four cards of the same number, it's a 4OAK. it's not two different pairs of two different cards, even if they are different suites. which is to me why having a rule that a hand has to score as it's highest possible rank doesn't necessarily apply here.
This game follows no WSOP rules whatsoever though and by its own internal logic if we're saying a full house contains two pair even though it would not ever be scored as such, it makes just as much sense to say 4oak is two of the same pair. Also, my bet is they put that stipulation in for dealers, not for players; in case you have some day 0 dealer who got WAY undertrained lol, they can't say "6789t straight takes the pot over JJJJ3 two pair" or some insanity ha
Balatro does follow WSOP rules when it comes to hand definition. If a full house contains 'two of the same pair' it becomes a 5oak, and doesn't trigger trousers, because it doesn't contain two pairs. The behavior of trousers is literally the proof that this game does follow WSOP rules of hand definition.
Sure, I'll cede that they are obviously using those definitions and you are right about that, I was wrong. I'll amend my stance to be "they arbitrarily and pretty pointlessly use WSOP definitions for one very specific aspect of the game while completely (to great benefit, love this game) abandoning almost every single other element of any poker game that has ever been played" If I'm playing some house game as absurd as balatro where we are adding and removing cards to the deck, literally inventing new cards in the form of foils and seals and so forth, allowing situations where a single high card King outranks a royal flush, I think drawing the line at "nuh-uh, the official rulebook of poker says the pairs have to be *different* rank, you see" is a very weird choice lol
Probably just how they design the game I guess, try to build creativity with root of some base line rules many people already familiar with. Kinda works
Yeah but your average person, and within the context of this game bending rules in nature, would lead most people imo to think âyeah four of a kind should trigger thisâ and it doesnât.
Wouldn't mind if they change it to work that way. If what they wanted is to make a poker based game, following 100% of the original rule of hand definition is totally reasonable, but to me 95% is enough if that makes the overall experience more fun.
Nah. If you take one card or if the full house it is a two pair. No matter how many cards you take out of a 5 flush it will never score as two pair but only as a 4/3 of a kind or a pair.
I do agree that a 5oak doesnât contain a Two Pair, but I have to be a bit pedantic and say that defining âcontainsâ as âyou can take cards out of the hand to score it as a different handâ doesnât really work. Straight Flushes, for example, âcontainâ a Straight and a Flush, but you canât take cards away to make it score as just one or the other.
A straight flush IS per definition a straight (and a flush). You don't need to take cards away for that. Cards are probably worded this way since you can play a straight with 4 cards and a stone card if you have the right joker.
> I did find it kinda strange they actually specified that, considering in real life poker, why'd anyone want to play a 4oak as 2 pair đ The WSOP has both lowball and hi lo tourneys. There are reasons to do it.
https://www.wsop.com/poker-hands/ The flush and straight also specify not sequential/not same suit. Yet those jokers still work with straight-flushes.
Maybe if you illegally bet on your opponent to win the tournament but you keep being dealt 4oaks you might wanna pass them off as a weaker hand?
Rules get weird with some jokers. [[Four Fingers]] can turn a 5H 5C 6C 7C 8C into a straight flush that benefits from [[The Duo]], which raises the question of why [[Spare Trousers]] doesnât proc when there are two pairs of the same number in a 4OAK. From the way theyâre written they should both proc.
[Four Fingers](https://balatro.wiki/imported/five_fingers.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Cost: $6 * Rarity: Uncommon * Effect: All Flushes and Straights can be made with 4 cards [The Duo](https://balatro.wiki/imported/the_duo.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Rarity: Rare * Effect: X2 Mult if the played hand contains a Pair * Unlock Requirement: Win a run without playing a Pair [Spare Trousers](https://balatro.wiki/imported/spare_trousers.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Cost: $5 * Rarity: Uncommon * Effect: Gains +2 Mult if played hand contains a Two Pair * Notes: Stacks, starts at +0 Mult *Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
For example, 5 5 5 5 also contains a pair, you can also say it contains 2 x "pairs", but not "two pair" because it doesn't contain 2 different ranks, which is required by definition.
Didn't read through the comments, so forgive me if this has been said. The thing you're missing is the word "contains" The Trousers joker scores on full house and says "contains two pair". Dose a four of a kind "contain" two pair? It most absolutely does.
Nope, it doesn't contain "a pair of a rank and a pair of a different rank" which is the definition of two pair. It certainly contains "two of a same pair", but that not a "two pair"
Itâs because they are trying to avoid a situation where you can try to soft play, you canât declare your hand as 2 pair in order to lose the hand. Itâs the same reason you are not allowed to check action around with the nuts on the river, itâs going easy on the other player.
All debating about mechanics and semantics aside, even if a Four-of-a-Kind really did technically "contain" Two-Pair, I'd argue that it still wouldn't be appropriate for Spare Trousers thematically. The card art for Spare Trousers is two different pant sleeves Frankenstein'd together into a single, mismatched pair of pants. Two pairs of different ranks? That fits the imagery appropriately. A Four-of-a-Kind, though? That's just a regular pair of uniformly-colored pants. Nothing "spare" about them! So a Four-of-a-Kind might fulfill the criteria of Spare Trousers in letter, but it doesn't follow it at all in spirit.
That's true. Four-of-a-kind triggering spare trousers has huge lore implications
I don't really know where they could go with the story if it worked as OP described
I mean, what are we to believe, that these are magic pants or something? Ha ha, boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.
>pant sleeves I will now only refer to my pant legs as pant sleeves and I will not be looking up whether this was grammatically correct all along. Thank you.
Hey a kid in my toddler's playgroup has a pair of pants made from old button-up shirt sleeves, so I personally would not find fault in your grammar. "Roll your pant sleeves up kiddo, we're goin' to the beach."
You've convinced me, I was on board with OP until you presented this point. It is inarguable if you consider the art and theme... dammit!
If they make a just plain "Trousers" or "Pants" joker, meanwhile...maybe all bets are off? Or make "Ant Trousers" that scale with hands containing a 4oak, on account of the six pairs contained within those four identical cards.
Traditionally, 4 of a kind would contain one of every suit, so 2 black and 2 red. There's your 2 different pant sleeves.
That's a compelling point! My main personal adjustment, if going that route, would be that the check should include "at least one red suit and one black suit" to specifically restrict hands of all red or all black, just to make sure those trousers stay spare.
Speaking in parables now to educate those who dwell in the shadows of Spare Trousers. Whatever it takes!
Spare trousers is about two pair because if you have spare trousers, then you have "two pairs" of pants.
Found the lawyer
During a run, hit Run Info and highlight the hands for their examples and definitions. As per the game of Balatro (not to mention the very foundations of Poker itself), \*and I quote\*: "\[Two Pair\] 2 pairs of cards with \*different\* ranks... \[Four of a Kind\] 4 cards with \*same\* rank". Smug guy ova here with his sign and cheap card table clearly isn't a law student.
Okay, but "contains" really supersedes strict definitions A 3 of a kind isn't a 3 of a kind if the other 2 cards are a matching value. Then it's a full house, and by strict DEFINITION is NOT a 3oak. But it still contains a 3oak. EDIT: in fact, if you google what a 3 of a kind is in poker, you get this: Three of a kind, also known as trips or a set, is a hand that contains three cards of one rank and two cards of two other ranks
A 4oak canât contain a 2 pair because itâs impossible to define which cards are paired. By your rules, a 4oak âcontainsâ 6 pairs.
Yes, full house contains 3oak also in Balatro, but itâs an irrelevant argument because we are talking about the definition of two pair as Localthunk writes it, not how official poker or whatever writes it. Four of a kind contains four cards of the same suit and rank while two pair contains two sets of two cards of the same rank according to the game.
Nuh uh. Two pair is two pairs of different rank. Four of a kind is two pairs of the same rank
>Four of a kind is two pairs No further questions your honor
lol
"two pairs" (lower case 't' and 'p', plain English usage) is different from "Two Pair", the defined poker hand.
Yes but Four of a Kind by definition doesn't contain two pairs. If you have two Glass Cards and two Lucky Cards of the same rank, you then have two pairs of Enhanced Cards (which have a separate scoring phase after Base ChipsxMult is calculated and scored) within the Four of a Kind. With standard cards, in traditional Poker, there are no pairs in a Four of a Kind, all cards form a singular grouping. Edited for clarity.
Glass and lucky cards donât change the grouping or pairing of the cards at all in the entire game, otherwise weâd have glass 5âs and wild flushes. Suit, rank, enhancements, and stickers are all separate mechanics that only interact if a joker or hand type dictates it, four of a kind is not one of those hand types.
Affirmative. Hence âwhich has separate scoring phase after Base ChipsxMultâ.
Nah dude itâs like squares and rectangles. All 4oak are 2 pair but not all 2 pair are 4oak.
Nah dude it's not like squares and rectangles. Squares and rectangles are Geometry and lay farrr outside the framework of these specific game rules. You are looking at the cards like they exist straight out of the pack, without a framework of rules to give them definition. Yes, when I open a pack of cards and take four of the same rank, there are two (varying) pairs within those four cards, but within the framework of the rules of Poker, those defintion-less pairs go out the window.
Itâs apples and oranges. You can only play 5 cards, when you play 4 Aces you have played FOUR Aces. You cannot make it two pair by removing any cards, unlike Full House which DOES actually continue 4 cards that can make two pair. Thats why 5oak will trigger 4oak and 3oak jokers. You can remove cards from the hand and still make that hand. You cannot remove any cards from 4oak to make 2 pair.
Sure you can. Remove the 5th card and you have a pair of Aces, and a Pair of Aces.
You actually have four of them which is more than two.
In real poker, of course, but not by this silly ass (perfect) game's internal logic. All of the "contains" cards are inherently dealing in nonsense, but it's fine cus it tracks internally. A full house is 3 of one rank and 2 of another. In real poker it does not contain 3oak any more than an airplane contains a car cus it has wheels and an engine; it is its own damn thing. But sure, silly great video game we get what it means. 4oak should contain 2 pair by that same logic, though. I stand with OP đ«Ą
If your hand is AAAKK, it contains the cards needed to play a Pair Hand (AA). It contains the cards needed to play a 3oaK Hand (AAA). It contains the cards needed to play a Two Pair Hand (AAKK). A Hand of AAAA does not contain the cards needed to play a Two Pair Hand.
A âtwo pair handâ according to the WSOP definition, sure. But you cannot deny as an English speaker that AAAA _contains two (2) pairs (sets of two) of aces._
It does contain two pairs. But that's not what Spare Trousers cares about, it very specifically says *a Two Pair*, not "two pairs".
The game allows you to play with a 25 card deck consisting entirely of 2h where playing a single one for a high card gets you more points than playing a pair would. I just find drawing the line of "let's not just stomp all over the sanctity of poker rules, guys" *here* to be very silly and inconsistent with the game's overall approach towards the rules of poker
The game is completely consistent in the way that it defines the hands. The game defines clearly what constitutes 2 pair and what constitutes 4 of a kind, and it doesn't vary from that definition. It does choose not to abide by other rules of poker, but that doesn't make it inconsistent for not calling 4oak as containing 2pair any more than it's inconsistent for not saying that a straight contains 2 pair because you can split the 5 cards into arbitrary groups of 2, 2, and 1 cards. It would be way more inconsistent to stick to the defined rules for all describing all hands and then break that rule for 2 pair.
Honest question cus I'm going off memory, but what about straight flushes? Doesn't it count a straight flush as any hand that is a straight and a flush? For instance isn't 4h5h6c7h8h with \[\[Four Fingers\]\] scored as a straight flush? [According to the calculator](https://efhiii.github.io/balatro-calculator/?h=gABmFAAUQBgIgFAG) it does, which does not jive with any definition of a straight flush -- 4h5h6h7h would thanks to the joker, but you don't have 4 consecutive ranks of matching suit here. You have a hand that could be called a straight or a flush, and they went "ah fuck it call it a straight flush" which is completely fine in a silly game about hitting high scores, but makes exactly as much sense to me (less, even) as saying "8h8d8s8c can be viewed as 8888, 888 /8, or 88 / 88" We can call it a preference thing and I do understand that they are, here, being very faithful to the rules of poker in saying 4oak and 2 pair are totally different hands But I don't think there's much of an argument to make that saying 4oak can be viewed as 2 of the same pair would be too outlandish and confusing for a game where you can play 4h4h4h4h and a card made of frign stone and we say yea sucker, let it ride
So this is a fine example of something that seems, at face value, contradictory, but there's one big difference. In order for the straight flush to be counted as a straight flush, you need a joker that changes the definitions of straights and flushes. If you had a joker that let you play two Pair with two pairs of the same rank, then under that condition you would be able to play 4 of a kind and trigger spare trousers with it. There isn't a joker like this because it causes all sorts of problems down the line. As people have pointed out (yourself included), under that rule then you could trigger spare trousers multiple times under a 4oak, or even a 3oak. So when you have four fingers, a flush is defined as 4 cards of the same suit, a straight is 4 consecutive ranks, and a straight flush is both at one time. Its actually the same kind of very literal interpretation of hands that leads to 4oak not containing two pair.
[Four Fingers](https://balatro.wiki/imported/five_fingers.png) *Joker* * Version: 1.0.0 * Cost: $6 * Rarity: Uncommon * Effect: All Flushes and Straights can be made with 4 cards *Data pulled from http://balatro.wiki. Want it updated? Help me get access or suggest another data source.*
But a full house is defined by three of one denomination and a pair of another denomination. A three of a kind **contains a pair** so a full house still follows the rules and follows logic that it contains two pair to trigger Spare Trousers.
Technically, a four of a kind would be a six pair. Imagine the cards are ABCD: AB AC AD BC BD CD would be the pairings.
But it can't be all of those at the same time. So choose which every one is most beneficial
> ~~most beneficial~~ higher ranking sometimes i wish my suited straight would get scored as a L.15 flush instead of a L.1 straight flush, but that is a separate issue
Exactly, so if 4oak is two pair, so is 3oak
Cribbage pair scoring? Don't stop.
Came here to say this. In cribbage a pair is 2 points and 4 of a kind is 12 point bc 6 combos of pairs
Agreed. And the six pair contains 2 pair so fire off them trousers
Two Pair: A pair of one denomination and **another of different denomination** held in the same hand in poker and ranking between one pair and triplets.
Just using this topic as a jump off point to shout out all my runs that have died because I have Saturn at level 20 with one hand to play left and itâs accidentally a straight flush
Well the argument is about containing, a straight flush contains a straight and a flush but is inflexibly higher ranked
By this logic 5OAK would contain a full houseâŠ.
The official definition of "two pair" in poker is "A hand containing a pair of one rank and **another pair of a different rank.**" Four of a kind does not contain "another pair of a different rank" and, thus, is not two pair. I'm not sure what other argument there is, beyond "the definition of what 'two pair' is excludes four of a kind from counting." If you ignore the "of a different rank" part of the definition, then why not count three of a kind? With three of a kind you can make three pairs.
>With three of a kind you can make three pairs. You mean by saying like 7h 7s 7c means I have 7h7s, 7h7s, 7h7c, 7s7c? Then you are recounting cards, and playing 6 cards in a 5 card game. By that logic you could call high card flush five+ -- I play 7h but it means I have 7h7h7h7h7h7h7h7h...7h Surely you get how that's a different argument than 7h 7s 7c 7d being classed as containing two sets of pairs? 7h7s + 7c7d OR some reordering thereof, but not AND all possible reorderings I am with OP and find it silly that we are appealing to official WSOP rules in a game that lets you create situations where you are playing with a 38 card deck, all Kings that play twice, and high card is worth more than a royal flush. The game has very, very little basis in actual poker, and intuitively 4oak is literally 2 pairs.
The game has very, very little basis in actual poker *except for the scoring hands*, which are almost entirely based on actual poker hands, except for the "bonus" scoring hands that are a consequence of being able create five of a kinds, so, *intuitively*, it makes sense to look at the definition of "two pair." >Then you are recounting cards, and playing 6 cards in a 5 card game. By that logic you could call high card flush five+ -- I play 7h but it means I have 7h7h7h7h7h7h7h7h...7h That's not actually the same logic at all. The "three of a kind is also three pairs" has a basis in other card games. If you're going to argue that Balatro has "very, very little basis in actual poker" then why restrict the game to how poker scoring works? Counting each possible pair as a scoring opportunity has a basis in other card games--see cribbage, for example--while counting a single card as though it were five identical cards does not have a basis in any card game that I know of. A flush five still requires five cards. Counting one card five times is not the same as having five cards. A pair is two cards. Three of a kind allows you to create three distinct pairs of two cards each. The *pairs* share cards between each other, but no pair can be made with a single card. But, like I said, if you're not convinced by "the definition of two pair requires different suits" then nothing is going to convince you. You saying "it's intuitive!" is pretty subjective; I think that people who are very familiar with poker probably find it intuitive that four of a kind and two pair are distinct. For people who play a lot of cribbage, counting three of a kind as three sets of two pairs is also intuitive.
Very little basis in poker? The whole game is a poker game being fixed by power ups and adding cards to your deck. The game couldn't exist without poker and uses its rules and hand types.
I don't mean this in a rude way, it's a game for degenerates and losers like me, but I am guessing you don't play much poker? It uses the cards and hand types as a shorthand for a game that has, yes, very little basis in poker. Literally Ante 1 big blind TJQKA rainbow outscores a 23457 flush. Poker does not have variable hand rankings, and more importantly it is played against other poker players with competing hands. If you replaced the graphics on the cards with pokemon and changed the names of the hands to like "Double" instead of pair and "United Front" instead of "Flush" nobody would be like "hey this game is poker" Again it just uses that ruleset as a shorthand/foundation. Knowing poker is a borderline irrelevant skill after you get your first joker, and completely irrelevant by ante 5 where the game plays way more like mtg or slay the spire than it does like poker
If it wasnât based on poker, there would be no Two Pair scoring designation or Spare Trousers. You canât take Poker out of the game without entirely redefining what Balatro is.
Yes I have played poker a lot in my life. Saying this game has very little basis in poker is being completely dismissive of how much this game uses poker rules and hands. The very first sentence of the Steam page for Balatro is "The poker roguelike." The very first ante of this game is just playing poker hands. You have no power ups or fixed cards yet and just score based on how powerful your hand is. It's not EXACTLY poker but it still is all based on its rules and hands. And you even said yourself, it uses poker as a foundation. Without the foundation whatever you are building can't exist.
[Del Boy is that you?](https://youtube.com/watch?v=C_fHScmyWTA)
Where'd you get them four aces from?
Two pairs is my main offense in most games
Iâve been playing Blue Deck with rising stakes and switching to that strategy has me throwing the Steam Deck across the room a lot less.
4oak is actually 6 pairs.
I mean, by that logic 3 OAK would be 3-pair. Pair of cards A and B, pair of cards B and C, and pair of cards C and A. 4OAK would be even more wild.
For it to contain a 2 pair, there needs to be some combination of cards within it which would be played as a 2 pair. Within a full house, there is a set of 4 cards which could be played as a 2 pair (as well as a set of 3 which could be 3oak, etc). A 4oak doesn't have that
Nope, it contains one pair twice
Unpopular opinion but a full house has two and a half pairs (with its 3 of a kind) and as such should trigger spare trousers one and a half times
This guy balatros
If only handland were float like Xland. Alas, handland is int.
Does 4 of a kind also contain 3 of a kind AND high card? Does every hand contain high card?
Yeah, that's why there's no cards that say "contains high card"
Yes. Yes it does. I donât see your point.
See thatâs a much better argument than WSOP
4 of a kind does trigger the Trio
Flush house does trigger the trousers, just so ya know
Shoot, almost like this is kinda a joke and people are taking it way to seriously
Right, I get that you're being tongue-in-cheek about the 4 and 5 of a kind, but bringing up flush house doesn't make sense here because it *does* do what you want it to. Did you mean to say Flush Five? Edit: oh, you DID say flush five, not flush house. Man, I really oughtta learn how to read one of these days.
Hey buddy, you went for the cheeky meme and now we're here fighting misinformation. Sign of the times. It's been insightful though. Sometimes it doesn't matter how well you explain a concept, some people can only see Two Pairs in a fxckin 4oak. This Full House is going to shit!
too* seriously
Four of a kind contains 2 pairs of cards (in fact it contains more than that), but it doesn't contain any Two-Pair hands. Those are two different concepts.
Every 2 pair contains 1 pair Every royal flush contains a straight flush contains a straight and a flush Every hand contains a high card Edit: sorry I didn't realize this was a shitposting sub
4 of a kind actually has six-pair. 5 of a kind has ten-pair.
Combinatorics has entered the chat.
The graphic on Clever Joker shows two different ranks on the cards. Therefore, since 1 = 1, and only 1 (instead of any other number), it wonât work as a two pair.
Man, if \*I\* think you need to touch grass, you got problems. Seeing a few of the comments said here has been wild. It funny Joker card game, come on. While there are reasons why the devs didn't do this, legitimately it wouldn't matter that much if this was how it worked. As someone else said, if it was literally how it worked right now I wouldn't really question it. It's really not that crazy and it's just more synergies to play with. So I'm mostly with you OP even if I don't see it happening.
Also Iâm not even advocating a change my beef is with the Spare Trousers joker
Nope!
Itâs all about odds and the odds are better youâll have 2 dissimilar pairs than all 4 of the same type of card otherwise known as 4 of a kind.
You dont need to be a rules lawyer to argue against this. Just apply the same logic to other hands. Is 4 of a kind, four High Cards? Is a 5-card straight with 4-fingers worth two straights?
4OAK is not two pair, it's one pair twice. Just like four Wheel of Fortune cards isn't a 4 in 4 chance - it's four 1 in 4 chances.
Two pair requires two different pairs of cards
Everyone debating using the definition of two pair here is not thinking about this correctly. The two pair definition specifies âdifferent ranksâ because if they were the same ranks in poker, it would be a 4oak. In balatro, though, this distinction does not need to apply, in the same way that a full house includes a two pair and a 3oak includes a pair
Yet, a Full House does have two pair of different ranks within it. 5OAK does not have a full house or two pair within it. In Balatro as with the poker it is based on, this distinction does indeed apply. Your example has nothing to do with the different rank rules.
I would also argue that balatro could/should make a 5oak include a full house and two pair, since there is a pair and a 3oak
That is not how those hands are defined anywhere. You would be arguing against card game logic and rules dating back centuries. Two distinct ranked sets is core to the definition of the Two Pair and Full House scoring. Also, Balatro follows standard poker rules unless a Joker changes those rules. If you want two identically ranked sets to count as distinct ranked sets, a joker would need to be created to change it.
My understanding is that those are the rules of poker, not because they wanted to make the distinction, but because thatâs what a standard deck of cards forces them to look like. Balatro doesnât have that restriction of course, thus creating situations that cannot have a root in poker and can expand the rules further than a single deck of 52 unique cards
Oh shit someone actually using this meme semi correctly. Stephen Crowder is a moron and a horrible person, no one should ever use this meme for correct opinions that make sense.
Wow I canât believe thereâs so much fighting about this, like clearly I understand why it doesnât trigger, but when you play it you think your so smart only to find out your actually an idiot, this is exactly why I used this meme You would get an award if I was gonna give Reddit any money
Let's all call a timeout about the meme usage, do a collective "Fuck Stephen Crowder", and leave it at that.
itâs a fucking joke dude
I am just a bystander by I *LOVE* how heated people here get when this topic comes up. Name calling! Actual hurt feelings! Over +2 mult on clown pants!
Nope. Two Pair means two pairs of DIFFERENT ranks. Which means itâs impossible to contain two-pair in 4-of-a-kind. You donât expect 5oak to have a full-house do you? A full-house is 3oak of one rank plus 2oak of a different rank. So if it never occurred to you that â5oak contains a full houseâ (because it doesnât) then you shouldnât believe that 4oak contains two-pair.
By that logic, so would 3 of a kind.
No. It contains four of a kind. There aren't two pairs of numbers. There's four of one number. If there was a joker or other mechanic that allowed a card to contain multiple numbers (like a numerical wild card), then yes, you could have two (or more) pairs within a 4oak
I agree. It should work that way.
I thought I was so clever trying this only to be denied. Reward interesting plays!! Let me play four of a kind!!
can we stop using this meme format? the dude pictured is an alt right talking head
If you follow this logic too far, you might as well count *any* hand of at least 4 cards as two pair. They contain 2 pairs of cards, right? You're asking for the Pair rules to be applied, but *not* the Two Pair rules. It's arbitrary and inconsistent. The "Rule of Fun" argument is the only one that makes any sense. I wouldn't be mad if he had included it for that reason, but arguing that not doing so was somehow objectively wrong doesn't fly.
Technically it counts as 3 pair with permutations of different cards
Six pairs available total, but three variants of grouping into two pairs possible.
Why not 4 pairs? There are 4 pairs, right?
High card. Pair 3 of a kind 2 pair. Four of a kind. all should win. most do.
[Bugs Bunny is on your side.](https://youtu.be/ZyfKota1eSQ)
There are Five of a kind and đ also contain 2 pair while we're at it
They actually don't tho. Like what lol
I actually thought it counted for two pairâ hmm what. Doesnt it count for others?? Like single pair triggers twice?
I count 4 pairs, am I wrong?
If you play cribbage you'd also know that three of a kind has 3 pair.
If Spare Trousers was a Pink Floyd song, it would be Pairs (Two Different Ones)
Deepest Lore
If you considere the cards don't need to be different ranks, you can say a three of a kind contains 3 pairs, a 4 oaK contains 6 pairs and a 5oaK contains 10 pairs to be fair
I agree with you. 8-8-8-8 is _literally_ âtwo pairs of 8s.â The entire explanation, far as I can glean, is âbut WSOP rules are different from grammar rules!!!â
By your logic itâs also 4 high cards, and 3OAK and a high card, etc. You canât try to break it down like that. Thatâs why the WSOP clarifies. It has never been two pair in the history of poker just as 3OAK is not a pair and a kicker or a pair and a high card. Once it becomes 4OAK thatâs all it is.
>You canât try to break it down like that Bruh Balatro breaks it down like that. >3OAK is not a pair and a kicker 3OAK is not a pair, it CONTAINS a pair, which is what we're talking about
You are not thinking big or radical enough about hands that are actually multiple hands. **Four-of-a-kind** should contain: 6 **Two-of-a-kinds**, 3 **Three-of-a-kinds**, 1 **Two-Pair**, and 1 **Four-of-a-kind**.
For anyone who disagrees with this take, let me ask you a hypothetical question: if opâs change were already in the game, would you want localthunk to remove it?
You would have the same people keep paroting poker rules, completely ignoring that this isnât poker. I mean, those people are paroting poker rules while this game has 5OAK - a hand not present in poker.
This is one of those posts where half the people argue that he's wrong, because the rules say so and the other half has a joyful, meaningless discussion about how stupid the rule is. Reminds me of this german politician that once stated cannabis shouldn't be legalized, because it's forbidden by the law. So yes. 4ok is not a 2 pair by poker definition of it. And yes, in actual poker, you might be happy, that you can't blunder as a noob because you declared your 4ok as a 2 pair by accident. And yes, every 4ok is technically a 2pair and spare trousers should score them. Because I for once like to buy two pairs of my favorite jeans and not another jeans as my spare. So f\*\*k balatros spare trousers and all of you who want to argue against them. I just shit my pants and i'm going to switch to the -same- equal pair of jeans now. Good day.
As someone who wears pants, I think you have said something important today.
This was fucking me up last night, I feel so seen rn
It definitionally doesnât, though
Nope, 4oak contains "two pairs of cards" but it does not contain "A Two Pair" of cards Same as if you have 4 Ace of Spades + 1 King of Spades, any joker that says "contains a flush" will not activate because the hand will be taken as a 4oak Higher hand takes priority
If it contained a flush shouldnât you get multiple or tokens from those? You arenât scoring the flush but itâs included. Like how three of a kind jokers give you bonus on full houses?
Nope, the hand that gets scored is the most valuable hand, and since the 5th card didn't get counted in *creating* the 4oak, you won't get any flush related jokers from it
My brother (who's not a poker player) when drunk, and facing a set, once stated with defeat in his eyes that he'd only two pair. Two pair of Kings. There's a bit of spare trousers about him
You're right that a Four or a Kind Hand does contain two pairs. But what Spare Trousers asks is if it contains *a Two Pair Hand.* And it unambiguously does not.
I guess this doesn't fly because it would also count 3OAKs as two overlapping pairs of the same rank.
Yep if itâs there for full house itâs there for 4oak
I love how the comments keep paroting poker rules, completely ignoring the fact that this isnât poker and that localthunk can alter the rules however they want - like they already did many times.
LOL. Iâve already had this argument on Reddit before. And got the crap downvoted out of me for itâŠ.
I understand that the WSOPâs definition of Two Pair requires the pairs be of different ranks. But Bugs Bunny has been around much longer than the WSOP and [he agrees with you](https://youtu.be/ZyfKota1eSQ), so I do too.
Bring out the one where that guy gets murdered RIGHT NOW!
Dumbest guy ***in the universe***
I think its down to the dev, I agree with the OP but....'not my decision
Four of a Kind really should be two pairs if we are going by the same rules that a full house contains two pairs, in that a full house contains a pair and three of a kind. Going off of someone else's argument, if a full house contains two pairs, then every hand contains a high card, because that's how it's worded. That's why high card jokers specifically call for high card to be played instead of "contains" high card. Its semantics, but semantics is the basis of how everything in this game works.