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Month: April 2025

Green Deck Gains, Stat Tracking, and the Humble Beginnings of Jimbo’s Data

Published by Kim on April 27, 2025

Another week, another pair of Balatro runs where the deck was greener than my snack budget. We queued up with Green Deck, White Stake, and the results were… mixed (but emotionally rich):

  • First run: Hit The Wall. Brutal. Stone-cold. Especially since I was so close to victory.
  • Second run: Victory over Violet Vessel. Sweet, sweet redemption.

A comeback story in two acts — Hollywood, call me.

Winning the Anti-Lottery

We started off Saturday’s stream by talking about the odds of pulling four Rental Jokers in a Mega Buffoon Pack. Spoiler alert: the odds are extremely low — and yet, I somehow managed it. A true statistical anti-lottery. Somewhere out there, a probability professor weeps.

Saturday Stats Check-In

On SQL Saturday, we dove back into some stats we’ve been collecting:

  • Most Common Tags: I am still investing in myself via the tags I skip. Don’t forget that economy – future you will thank you.
  • Run-level and round-level observations:
    • My average time per game is trending down now that I’ve gotten the hang of streaming.
    • I tend to skip the most rounds during Antes 1 and 2 (relatable), but Small Blind and Big Blind skips are about even.
    • We started poking into which Boss Blinds show up the most — but it’s still early days for good data there.

Jimbo’s Data: From Little Joker to Big Dreams

Finally, we took a stroll through the early stages of Jimbo’s Data (full walkthrough and tl;dr version)— my lovingly homebrewed Balatro data tracking mod. Right now it’s just capturing run start and run end info in CSVs. But like every Common Joker hoping for greatness, it’ll grow into a legendary tracker over time. Expect more detailed per-round, per-card, and per-shop tracking soon!

Catch the chaos live on Twitch, or watch me wrangle SQL into submission over on YouTube. As always, thanks for being here while I turn napkins into data pipelines.

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What I’ve Been Napkin’ On: Balatro Stats, SQL Snacks, and Some Video Dreams

Published by Kim on April 20, 2025

It’s been a data-fueled two weeks over at NapKim Math HQ, aka my desk. Here’s what I’ve scribbled together lately — no coffee stains were harmed in the making of this post.

Balatro: The Game, the Myth, the Math

So, I started poking at Balatro data more seriously, and now I’m building my own stat-tracking mod (more on that coming soon!). It’s kind of like a FitBit for your runs, except it tracks Jokers, not steps. I’m logging everything I can — scoring patterns, shop choices, and yes, even the emotional rollercoaster that is the Wheel of Fortune. Spoiler: the Law of Large Numbers is real, even if your luck isn’t.

Need proof? I linked to a few brave souls on Reddit who manually tracked 1,000+ spins. Absolute legends.123 I also spotlighted a Redditor45 who built a public Joker sticker tracker — super handy if you’re not already rocking Completionist++ (in which case, congrats, you’re basically the final boss).

I’m also tracking all the SQL I use during our SQL Saturday streams right in my Balatro GitHub repo, so if you see a cool query on stream, you can snag it there — no need to squint at my screen.

SQL Napkins: Wipe Up That Messy Data

Meanwhile, I’ve been building reusable SQL templates — aka napkins — that help you clean and analyze datasets faster than you can say SELECT * FROM feelings. They’re game-agnostic, meaning you can use them whether you’re analyzing Balatro runs, inventory spreadsheets, or your cats’ meal patterns.

If you’re new to SQL or BigQuery, don’t panic — here’s the starter guide, and here’s the syntax cheat sheet. Pair it with my napkins, and you’ll be querying like a boss in no time.

Content Dreams and Streaming Schemes

I’ve been scheming up video plans too — think SQL explainers, Balatro deep dives, and sneak peeks of my dataset as it evolves. Still learning the whole “editing” thing (aka, right now the clips are just vibes), but I’m live three times a week showing everything raw and unfiltered — like your data before a WHERE clause.

Where to Find Me

  • Twitch for live gameplay and datasets mid-chaos
  • YouTube for live gameplay as well as the archive (and future highlight dreams)
  • Instagram and Bluesky for announcements
  • GitHub for all the SQL goodness
  • Ko-fi if you wanna fuel my caffeine + server time

Thanks for watching me spin the Wheel of SQL these past couple weeks. More data, more napkins, and hopefully more jokers coming soon. As always, remember: clean your data like you clean your counters — or at least like you clean your napkins.

  1. Reddit Wheel of Fortune post 1 ↩︎
  2. Reddit Wheel of Fortune post 2 ↩︎
  3. Reddit Wheel of Fortune post 3 ↩︎
  4. Sticker tracker Reddit post ↩︎
  5. Direct link to sticker tracker ↩︎

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Welcome to NapKim Math!

Published by Kim on April 3, 2025

Welcome to NapKim Math! I’m so glad you’re here 🙂 I will be streaming on Twitch and YouTube for the first time this Saturday, April 5 at 2 PM ET.

During the first stream, I’ll play Balatro and show how I’ll track basic stats for future streams. While I’ve played Balatro extensively on my phone, I’ll be starting from scratch via Steam so we can track together from the very beginning.

I then plan on following this schedule for streaming (subject to change):

  • Tuesdays @ 6 PM ET – Balatro
  • Thursdays @ 6 PM ET – Balatro
  • Saturdays @ 2 PM ET – Build and analyze a dataset

I look forward to seeing you there!

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