Pyramid Solitaire

Twenty-eight in a pyramid

How to play Pyramid Solitaire

Twenty-eight cards are dealt face up in seven rows, one card at the apex and seven along the base, each row overlapping the one above. The remaining twenty-four go to the stock.

Every card has a numeric value — ace is 1, jack 11, queen 12, king 13 — and the whole game is the number thirteen. Any two available cards that add to exactly thirteen come off together. Kings are already thirteen, so they leave on their own.

A card is only available when nothing covers it. At the start that means the seven cards along the base, and nothing else. Every removal opens the board a little further, and the deal is won when all twenty-eight are gone. What is left in the stock or waste does not matter.

The only arithmetic

Which cards pair with which

There are only seven combinations to learn, and after a couple of deals you stop counting and start seeing them.

Pairing rules

Which pairs make thirteen

Clearing technique

Pyramid Solitaire strategy

Work the pyramid, not the waste. Every pair you can take entirely from the board is free progress, while every pair that uses the waste card costs you part of a finite stock. When both are available, the board move is almost always right.

Keep the rows even. A pyramid that has been eaten away on one side leaves a tall stack of blocked cards on the other, and those cards need a whole triangle cleared beneath them. Taking pairs that flatten the shape uniformly opens far more of the board than chasing one deep column.

Count the cards you still need. If both queens are gone and there are aces buried high in the pyramid, those aces have exactly two partners left in the deck and you should know where they are. Pyramid is short enough that tracking a couple of critical ranks is realistic, and it is the difference between a deal you steer and one you watch.

Three ways to run out

Where Pyramid deals get lost

Clearing the pair that opens nothing

When two pairs are available, they are almost never worth the same. Removing a pair from the far left of row seven uncovers one card; removing one that sits under a shared parent uncovers a card that unlocks two more. Always ask what the removal exposes, not just whether it is legal.

Spending a king too early

A king removes alone, which makes it feel free. It is not — it is the only card that can clear a blocking position without needing a partner, so a king sitting low in the pyramid is worth holding until the card above it actually needs freeing.

Drawing past a card you still need

With one pass and no recycling, the waste is a one-way street. Before drawing, check whether the current waste card pairs with anything that will become available in the next move or two — because once it is buried, it is gone for the rest of the deal.

Pyramid's low odds

Is Pyramid Solitaire winnable?

Often not, and this version is on the strict side. With a single stock pass and no redeals, a deal that buries both partners of a needed rank under the same corner of the pyramid cannot be rescued by any sequence of moves. Skill decides a great many deals; it does not decide all of them.

Versions that allow two or three passes through the stock are dramatically more forgiving, so published win rates for Pyramid vary enormously and none of them describe this page. We do not quote one for that reason. If the one-pass rule is what frustrates you, Giza uses the same thirteen-pairing rule with no stock at all — everything is visible, and it becomes a puzzle rather than a gamble.

Other pairing games

Pyramid against the other clearing games

TriPeaks is the closest relative and the better game for a quick session: the same two-card blocking, but building a run one rank at a time means a single good card can clear half a peak. Pyramid asks for exact partners, which is stricter and slower.