Pyramid Solitaire

How to play Pyramid Solitaire

Pyramid Solitaire is a quick, addictive patience game built entirely around a single number: thirteen. Twenty-eight cards are dealt face up in a seven-row triangle, and beneath it waits a stock of the remaining twenty-four cards. Your job is to dismantle the pyramid from the bottom up by removing pairs of cards whose values add up to 13 — a 6 with a 7, an Ace with a Queen, a 5 with an 8, and so on. Kings are worth 13 all by themselves, so they simply vanish with a single tap. It sounds effortless, but only the cards that are not covered can be taken, which turns every deal into a small puzzle of order and timing. This version offers a relaxed three-pass mode and a tense single-pass mode, a timer, a move counter and a ranked score, so you can chase a perfect clear or race your own best.

The goal

The goal is to clear the entire pyramid — all twenty-eight cards — before the stock runs out of passes. Every card you remove chips away at the triangle and uncovers the cards above it, so a full clear is a chain of well-timed pairs. You do not have to empty the stock or the waste pile; only the pyramid itself has to disappear. Do it quickly and with as few dead ends as possible to earn the highest score.

The board and the deal

Each deal uses a standard 52-card deck. Twenty-eight cards form the pyramid: one card on the top row, two on the second, three on the third, and so on down to seven cards along the base. Each card is overlapped by the two cards directly below it, so at the start only the seven cards along the bottom row are fully uncovered and playable. The remaining twenty-four cards become the stock, drawn one at a time onto the waste pile. Card values are simple: an Ace counts as 1, number cards their face value, a Jack 11, a Queen 12 and a King 13.

The rules in brief

• Only uncovered cards can be played. A pyramid card is uncovered once both of the cards resting on top of it have been removed; the seven cards on the bottom row are uncovered from the start.
• Remove two uncovered cards whose values add up to exactly 13 — for example 9 + 4, 8 + 5, 10 + 3, or Ace + Queen. Tap the first card, then the second, and the pair disappears.
• A King is worth 13 on its own, so tap a single uncovered King to remove it — no partner needed.
• The top card of the waste pile counts as uncovered too. It can pair with any uncovered pyramid card, giving you extra combinations to work with.

The stock and its passes

When no useful pair is showing, tap the stock to turn its top card face up onto the waste, where it becomes available to pair. Keep drawing until the stock is empty. If passes remain, tapping the empty stock recycles the whole waste back into the stock so you can go through it again. Easy mode allows three passes through the stock — that is two recycles — which is very forgiving. Hard mode allows a single pass: once the stock is spent, what is left is all you get, so plan every draw carefully.

Winning, losing and undo

You win the instant the last pyramid card is removed, and a banner shows your time, move count and score. The deal is lost if you run out of both pairs to play and stock passes to draw while cards still remain in the pyramid. Either way you can start a fresh deal at once, or use Undo to step back move by move — handy for exploring a line without committing to it. Undo rewinds removals and draws exactly, so you can always retrace your path back to the start of the deal.

Strategy tips

• Work the pyramid evenly. Removing cards from only one side leaves a lopsided wall that is hard to break; try to bring both shoulders of the triangle down together so more cards stay uncovered.
• Look before you draw. Every uncovered card on the board and the waste top is a potential partner — scan for all the 13s already possible and take the ones that unlock the most covered cards first.
• Kings are free removals, but timing matters: a King buried in the pyramid still needs its two coverers gone first, so clear toward it rather than leaving it stranded near the top.
• Hoard your passes in hard mode. Draw only when the board is truly stuck, and try to leave yourself a useful waste card rather than burning through the stock early.
• For a high score, favour a complete clear over raw speed — finishing the pyramid is worth far more than the time bonus. But once you can reliably clear a deal, shaving seconds is how you climb the leaderboard.

Frequently asked questions