Pyramid Solitaire

Pyramid offers a refreshingly different challenge from the tableau-building games that dominate solitaire. Instead of building sequences and moving cards between columns, Pyramid is a matching game. Cards are laid out in a striking triangular formation, seven rows deep — visually appealing and immediately understood.

Unlike standard solitaire where you build sequences, Pyramid is purely about pairing.

The core mechanic is simple: find two exposed cards whose ranks add up to thirteen, then remove them. Aces count as 1, Jacks as 11, Queens as 12, and Kings — worth 13 on their own — are removed without a partner. That arithmetic base makes Pyramid one of the most accessible solitaire games, including for children learning addition.

What makes Pyramid deceptively strategic is card blocking. Each upper-row card covers two cards in the row below. You cannot remove a buried card until both cards above it are gone. This creates cascading dependencies — you must think not just about available pairs, but about which removals unlock the most future options.

Despite its accessibility, Pyramid has a notably low win rate compared to Klondike or FreeCell. Studies suggest only about 1 in 20 randomly dealt games are theoretically winnable (around 5%), though this varies by rule variant. That scarcity makes each win feel genuinely earned and keeps players coming back for one more try.

If you finish a session and want to share, send it to the one friend who insists solitaire is "just luck" — Pyramid is the cleanest counterexample.

Setup: Shuffle a standard 52-card deck. Deal 28 cards face-up in a pyramid: one card in row one, two in row two, continuing to seven in the bottom row. Each card partially overlaps two cards in the row below. The remaining 24 cards form the stock pile.

Card values for pairing: Ace = 1, numbered cards = face value, Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13. On each turn:

1. Find a pair. Look for two exposed cards (no card overlapping them) whose values add up to 13. Common pairs: Queen + Ace, Jack + 2, 10 + 3, 9 + 4, 8 + 5, 7 + 6.
2. Remove Kings alone. Kings equal 13 by themselves and are removed without a partner.
3. Use the waste pile. You may pair an exposed pyramid card with the top card of the waste pile, or pair a card drawn from the stock with an exposed pyramid card.
4. Draw from the stock. When no pairs are available, draw one card at a time from the stock. Drawn cards go to the waste pile; only the top card is available for pairing. In most variants, you may cycle through the stock once. The game is won when all 28 pyramid cards are removed. It is lost when no more moves are possible.

• Clear upper rows first. Cards near the top of the pyramid cover more cards below them. Clearing them early creates the most opportunities. Always scan the full pyramid before picking a pair.
• Don't start with the bottom row. Bottom-row cards block nothing, so removing them gives the least strategic advantage. Focus higher in the pyramid first.
• Track which values remain. If three of the four Sevens are gone, the last Seven can only pair with the last Six. Watch these dependencies closely — a needed card buried in the waste pile can make the game unwinnable.
• Remove Kings as soon as they are exposed. Kings need no partner and always free up space. The only exception is when removing a King wastes a turn that could instead unlock more cards above.
• Save one King as an emergency skip. If two Kings are exposed simultaneously and the rest of the board offers no productive pair, hold one. A King removal late in the game functions as a free turn that lets you advance the waste pile without losing a viable tableau move — useful when you need to dig a specific card out of stock.
• Avoid the 7-6 trap. Pairing 7s and 6s early feels productive because they're the most common matchable pair (six 7s and 6s pair-eligible in the standard deck). But burning both copies of either rank before the bottom row clears leaves orphan partners with nowhere to go. Track which 7s and 6s remain before committing to either pair.
• Plan stock passes by win-rate math. Each additional pass through the stock raises the theoretical win rate by roughly 1-2 percentage points — strict one-pass rules sit near 2%, three-pass rules climb to about 5%. If your variant allows multiple passes, attack the upper pyramid aggressively in pass one even at the cost of pile efficiency; passes two and three will resurface paired cards you need.

Pyramid's exact origins are unclear, but the game has appeared in card game collections since at least the early 1900s. Its association with Egyptian imagery likely comes from the triangular layout rather than any actual Egyptian heritage.

The game got significant digital exposure through Microsoft's inclusion of Tri Peaks — a related solitaire game with a similar layout — in various Windows game collections. Online versions of Pyramid grew especially popular in the early 2000s as browser-based gaming expanded, with sites like Pogo and Yahoo Games featuring it prominently.

Pyramid's mathematical properties have drawn interest from recreational mathematicians. The question of what percentage of deals are winnable remains debated — estimates range from 0.5% to 5% depending on the specific rules around stock pile recycling and which cards can pair.