Pyramid Solitaire
Mouse and keyboard
- Click a card to lift it, then click its partner to remove the pair.
- Click a King to remove it on its own. Click a lifted card again to put it back.
- Click the stock, or the Draw button beside it, to turn a card; Hint lights a legal pair; Undo takes back a move. On a keyboard the arrow keys walk the cards you can play, Enter takes one, D draws and U undoes.
Touch
- Tap a card, then tap its partner. A covered card or an impossible pair shakes.
- Tap the stock to turn a card, Hint for a pair, Undo to go back.
This panel
- F full screen
- M sound on or off
- ? this list
- Esc close, or leave full screen
- The clock stops while the board is off screen
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| Board | Played | Won | Drawn | Win rate | Best | Fastest | Best run |
|---|
Awards for Pyramid Solitaire
- Pyramid razed Clear a Pyramid Solitaire deal to the last card. Needs: clear the pyramid Locked
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About Pyramid Solitaire
Pairs that add to thirteen. Kings go alone.
Pyramid is arithmetic wearing a card game’s clothes: every move is a pair that adds to thirteen, and every pair you take opens the two cards underneath.
The difficulty is not the sum. It is that the pyramid buries ranks in an order you cannot change, so the game is decided by which cards you spend from the waste and which you save for the card they will unlock later.
The pyramid is dealt onto green felt — the default table for every card game on this site, with wood, marble, midnight and a high-contrast setting behind the settings button — and the cards are drawn as large as the twenty-eight positions and your screen allow.
Also searched for as
- pyramid patience
- pyramid cards
- solitaire pyramid
- thirteen solitaire
Whichever name you know it by, it is the same game: it runs in this browser, with no download and no sign-up.
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How to play Pyramid Solitaire
- Twenty-eight cards are dealt face up in a pyramid of seven rows. The rest are the stock, The undealt pile. Turn a card from it when nothing on the table will move. face down, turned one card at a time onto the waste. The face-up pile beside the stock. Only its top card is in play.
- Remove cards in pairs that add to thirteen: Queen and Ace, Jack and two, ten and three, nine and four, eight and five, seven and six. A King is worth thirteen on its own and goes by itself.
- A card can only be taken when nothing rests on it — the two cards below it in the pyramid must both be gone. The top card of the waste can always be paired; the stock is face down, so turn a card to bring it into play.
- Tap one card, then its partner. An impossible pair shakes rather than doing nothing. Tap a King once.
- When the stock runs out you may turn the waste over and go through it again — once, to start with. The Redeals Another pass through the stock once it has run out. control sets none, one or two, and each setting keeps its own best score. Clearing the whole pyramid wins.
Strategy that actually helps
- Count the Kings first. Four cards are worth thirteen alone, and each one you take opens the cards under it for free — a King buried deep is a much bigger problem than a King on top.
- Do not spend the waste card carelessly. The top of the waste is a pair member you can keep, so leaving a useful rank there is a way of saving it for the card it unlocks two moves later.
- Work out which pyramid cards block the most. A card in the fifth row covers two cards, which each cover two more; taking it early is worth several later moves.
- Watch for a rank you have already spent. If all four sixes are gone, every seven left in the pyramid can only leave by pairing with a six from the stock — and there are none.
- Redeals are finite. With one redeal you get two passes of the stock, and each pass is only twenty-four cards, so the first pass should be spent opening the pyramid rather than clearing easy pairs.
Controls
Mouse and keyboard
- Click a card to lift it, then click its partner to remove the pair.
- Click a King to remove it on its own. Click a lifted card again to put it back.
- Click the stock, or the Draw button beside it, to turn a card; Hint lights a legal pair; Undo takes back a move. On a keyboard the arrow keys walk the cards you can play, Enter takes one, D draws and U undoes.
Touch
- Tap a card, then tap its partner. A covered card or an impossible pair shakes.
- Tap the stock to turn a card, Hint for a pair, Undo to go back.