Games

It's hard to offer strong heuristics for Balatro because you could theoretically build up to a point where you've got a crazy high multiplier but if your chips are low it doesn't matter.

For example let's say you've got a face card 4 of a kind build going with: Pareidolia, Zany, Smiley, Trio, and Family jokers. These give you (respectively) all cards are face cards, +12 mult for 3 of a kind, +20 mult for each hand (all cards are face cards), x3 mult, x4 mult for a total of 384 multiplier! On base 4 of a kind this is

60x([7+12+20]x3x4)=28,080

However if you were to drop smiley face (+5 mult per face) for scary face (+30 chips per face card) which by almost every heuristic is a bad decision your score becomes:

(60+120)x([7+12]x3x4)=41,040

Which is a way bigger score!

So while people can offer general advice like stack high chips on plasma, always go for total score multipliers, etc. sometimes you just have to evaluate your specific build and figure out the best play

Finally outside of decks like abandoned and checkered which are specifically made to get certain hands, there isn't a "best" hand to go for. The highest possible scores I've seen all come from high card builds but most normal players won't get those. I've won two of a kind runs, flush 5 runs, straight runs, flush runs. You just have to evaluate your deck and tarot cards to see your options