Pyramid Solitaire

About this game

Pyramid Solitaire deals twenty-eight cards into a seven-row pyramid where every card is pinned by the two sitting below it, and asks you to dismantle the whole thing by adding up to thirteen. An Ace counts one, a Jack eleven, a Queen twelve, and any two uncovered cards that total thirteen come off together — a nine with a four, a ten with a three, a Queen with an Ace. A King is already thirteen on its own, so it simply leaves. The catch is that only fully uncovered cards can be touched: the card you need is almost always trapped under two others, and freeing it means finding partners for both of them first, which turns a game that looks like arithmetic into one about order. The twenty-four cards left over form the deck, turned one at a time onto a waste pile whose top card is always in play, and you get three passes through it before the deck is spent for good. That pass count is the whole difficulty dial, and it is a deliberate one: on a raw shuffle a single pass leaves only about four deals in a hundred winnable, while three passes lifts that past six in ten. Because even three passes cannot save every shuffle, the default deal is checked by a solver before it reaches you, so a game you lose is a game you misplayed rather than one that was never winnable — or switch to Random and take the shuffle exactly as it falls, which is the older and far crueller way to play. Unlimited undo, a running score with bonuses for each row you strip away, and a timer that starts on your first move.

Controls

Tap or click a card, then its partner, to remove a pair adding to 13. Tap a King to remove it on its own. Tap the deck to turn a card.

Keyboard

• Arrow keys move between cards, Enter selects.
• N new game, U undo, D turn the deck, Esc clear the selection.

How to play

Remove all twenty-eight pyramid cards by pairing two uncovered cards whose ranks add to thirteen (Ace 1, Jack 11, Queen 12); a King is thirteen alone and needs no partner.

What is playable

• A pyramid card is only playable once both cards below it are gone.
• The top card of the waste pile is always playable, but only that one — two waste cards can never be paired together, and the face-down deck is never playable until turned.
• You get three passes through the deck, so two redeals.

Winnable deals

• Not every shuffle can be won, so the Winnable setting runs a solver over each deal and only hands you one it has proved has a solution; Random gives you the shuffle unfiltered.

Read the full Pyramid Solitaire rules and strategy →