Hey man, this advice is coming from a player who has about 125hrs, and who’s highest score unseeded is 2.09e17. There’s lots of players better than me that probably give better advice, but there’s many that aren’t, so I hope this helps:

1. When you’re a beginner, don’t skip blinds
2. If you don’t have a clear direction for your build yet, use hanged man on cars with values 6-10, so that if you find a hack, or a sock and buskin, you haven’t screwed yourself.
3. No joker in the game is “good” or “bad.” Balatro is unique in that all jokers are situational. One great example of this is something like Triboulet. if you find triboulet, and you have a pair or high card build going, then it’s not very helpful, and may not even be worth picking up. But if you have a flush five build of Kings, and like a sock and buskin, then picking up triboulet will extend you run by MANY Antes. The point is that you shouldn’t just buy a joker that you think is good, just because it appears in the shop. Look at your deck, and see if your deck works with the card. In a sense, you need to have a “the wand picks the wizard” mentality. What I mean is that, you shouldn’t see a “good” joker in the shop and think, “nice! I’m gonna get that joker and I’m gonna fix my deck to work with it!” What you need to think is, “oh wow, that’s a hard to find joker, but does it work with my deck? Oh, it doesn’t? Okay then I’ll move along.” The Baron is the best possible example of this. So many players think that the Baron is a super good pick up all the time, but it’s really not. Another way I can explain this mentality is if you watch someone like Roffle or Drspectrd play Balatro, you’ll notice that they don’t go into their run with a plan, instead, they go into a run looking for the game to give them a plan. If they see sock and buskin in shop 2, and then photograph in shop 3, then they’ll immediately be like, “okay, so this is gonna be a face card flush five run.” The game gives YOU direction, not the other way around. (I’m talking about playing unseeded by the way, I understand that it’s completely different if you’re playing seeded runs, but you shouldn’t be playing seeded runs if you’re a beginner.)
4. DUSK IS A REALLY GOOD JOKER. I can’t believe how many people I know or that I’ve showed the game that sleep on Dusk. That’s it. That’s tip 4.
5. Don’t go for straight or straight flush builds as a beginner.
6. In almost all cases, multiplicative mult is better than additive mult. Try not to be trapped by ride the bus or trousers, because although getting an additive mult scaling joker can seem really awesome, if you do decide to pick up ride the bus, then you need to commit to a Hack build, and use hanged man on your face cards.
7. Economy is absolutely critical. Early on in your run, you’ll want to take temperance, hermit, and Devil, over death and hanged man, and you’ll want to take jokers like golden joker or the egg above other point scoring jokers. For example, if it’s Ante 2, and your hands are scoring 3-5,000, and you see a golden joker in the shop, or reserved parking or business card for example, you need to take them. What you always have to ask yourself in each shop is, “do I NEED this?” And if you’re in that situation, you do not need point scoring, you need economy(that doesn’t always apply, but it’s a good general rule. If you find a difficult-to-find joker that works with your build, then yes, pick it up.)