TriPeaks Solitaire | Play Free Online
TriPeaks Solitaire is a fast-paced single-deck matching patience built around three overlapping triangular peaks. Instead of building suit sequences or removing pairs of cards, you clear the table by repeatedly picking a single uncovered peak card whose rank is one higher or one lower than the card currently on top of the waste pile. Aces and Kings wrap around — Ace pairs with King as well as with Two — which keeps long, fluid scoring chains alive even when the visible ranks bounce around the high end of the deck. The game rewards both pattern recognition and decisive single-card commitment, and a typical hand finishes in under five minutes, making it one of the most addictive solitaires for short bursts of play.
How to Play
- TriPeaks uses a standard 52-card deck. Eighteen cards are dealt face-down across three identical triangular peaks (six cards per peak), with a shared base row of ten face-up cards spanning the bottom — twenty-eight cards in total form the picking field. The remaining twenty-four cards become the stock, and the top of the stock is flipped to the waste pile to seed the first move.
- A peak card is exposed when both of the cards immediately below it have already been removed. At deal-out only the ten base-row cards are exposed; everything in the upper three rows is covered. Removing a card uncovers any parent above it whose other child has already left the table.
- Card values follow the standard scheme: Ace = 1, numbered cards keep their face value, Jack = 11, Queen = 12, and King = 13. Suits and colors do not matter for picking — only ranks. The visible suit symbols are purely decorative.
- To pick a peak card, tap any exposed card whose rank is exactly one above or one below the current waste-top. From a 7 on the waste you can pick a 6 or an 8; from a Jack you can pick a Ten or a Queen. The picked card moves on top of the waste and becomes the new reference rank for the next pick.
- Aces and Kings wrap around in both directions. From a King you can pick an Ace as well as a Queen; from an Ace you can pick a King as well as a Two. This wrap is what makes long scoring runs possible — chains of seven or eight consecutive picks crossing the King/Ace boundary are common in strong play.
- When no exposed peak card is adjacent in rank to the current waste-top, tap the stock to deal one new card to the waste. The new card becomes the reference rank and may unlock peaks that were previously unreachable. Each stock tap consumes one card from the finite stock supply.
- In this variant the stock cycles through exactly once with no redeal. Every stock tap is a one-shot move; once the stock is empty, the only legal moves left are picks from the peaks. Plan your stock taps so you never burn a card that could have continued an in-progress chain.
- You win when all twenty-eight peak cards have been removed. Cards remaining in the stock or waste at that moment do not block victory — only the peaks must be empty. As soon as the last peak card lands on the waste, the game ends and a banner declares the win.
Strategy
Build the longest possible chain on every visit
TriPeaks rewards continuous runs of picks far more than it rewards single moves. Before you tap the first card, scan the exposed candidates and the ranks of the cards immediately behind them to plot the longest chain you can lock in. A chain of seven or eight cards consumed before another stock tap is the single largest contributor to consistent wins.
Use the King–Ace wrap deliberately
The wrap is not a fallback — it is a load-bearing tool. A King on the waste lets you pick either a Queen or an Ace, which can pivot a stalled chain into a fresh direction. Players who treat wrap as an emergency exit win less than half as often as players who plan wrap-pivots into their long runs from the start of the hand.
Map the peaks before the first move
Each peak has a single apex card and two children. Note which apex cards share children with another peak via the base row — the connecting base cards are leverage points. Removing a leverage card frees two cards at once when it lifts a shared parent on each side. Mapping the topology is a thirty-second investment that pays off across the whole hand.
Conserve stock by chaining first
With no recycle, the stock is a strictly finite resource. Every stock tap that could have been replaced by a peak pick is a wasted card. Always chase chains in the peaks before tapping the stock, and only tap when truly stuck — even a single skipped pick can be the difference between a win and a stalemate.
Don't break a chain for one extra card
A common mistake is breaking a long run to grab one peak card whose rank also happens to be adjacent to the current waste-top. If the alternative pick continues the chain, take the chain; the single peak card you skipped will usually come back into reach through wrap or through the next chain. Greed for one extra card frequently strands two or three more.
Watch the neck cards between peaks
The base row contains the only ten cards that initially expose parents. Two of those cards sit between adjacent peaks and each cover the apex of one peak's lowest-row neighbor — these are the 'neck' cards. Clearing a neck early often unlocks two peaks in two moves. Identify the necks during the map-out and prioritize them.
Recognize unwinnable positions early
When the waste-top is a rank whose only adjacent ranks (with wrap) are all buried behind covered cards, the position is locked. Tapping more stock cards rarely rescues a locked layout because the chain potential is gone. Recognize the lock, accept the partial result, and start a new hand rather than grinding the dead deal.
Undo to learn, not to grind
Undo is unrestricted in casual play, which makes it tempting to walk back every imperfect move. The more valuable habit is to undo at most one or two times per hand, after a clearly-wrong commitment, and use the undo as a learning aid rather than a brute-force search. Players who undo less often improve their look-ahead faster.
History
TriPeaks was invented in 1989 by Robert Hogue at Microsoft, where it was packaged as part of the Microsoft Entertainment Pack and shipped on millions of office PCs through the early 1990s. Hogue designed the game specifically as a short-session solitaire — three to five minutes per hand — that would feel different from Klondike without requiring a steep learning curve. The triangular layout was inspired by golf-style climbing games, and the chain-bonus scoring popularized the long-run gameplay style that defines the modern game.
Through the 1990s and 2000s, TriPeaks travelled into countless Windows-Solitaire successors, freeware compilations, and (later) mobile App Store launches. Variants emerged with different scoring weights, optional time bonuses, and occasional alternate layouts (two peaks instead of three, larger base rows), but the core ±1 picking rule and the three-peak silhouette became universal. By the 2010s it consistently sat in the top three most-played solitaires on every major platform alongside Klondike and FreeCell.
Two important variant decisions split modern implementations. The first is whether the stock recycles — most casual mobile apps allow recycling, while traditional and competitive versions restrict the deck to a single pass. The second is whether Ace and King wrap; older purist variants disable wrap, but every mainstream modern release enables it because the chain-friendly gameplay that wrap produces is what makes TriPeaks distinctive. Our implementation uses the single-pass-stock, wrap-enabled rule set — the variant most players encounter first on Microsoft Solitaire Collection.
TriPeaks shares its DNA with Pyramid and Tut's Tomb: all three are matching solitaires that clear a triangular layout from the bottom upward. Where Pyramid relies on sum-13 pair selection, TriPeaks emphasizes long runs of single-card picks. The two games are often packaged together in solitaire collections precisely because they exercise complementary skills — combinatorial pair-spotting versus sequential chain-planning.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is TriPeaks Solitaire?
TriPeaks Solitaire is a single-deck matching patience built around three overlapping triangular peaks of cards. You clear the table by picking uncovered peak cards whose rank is one above or one below the waste-top, with Ace and King wrapping around. The game emphasizes long picking chains and finishes in three to five minutes per hand.
How does the ±1 picking rule work?
Look at the card currently on top of the waste pile. You may pick any exposed peak card whose rank differs from that waste-top by exactly one — for example a Six or Eight may be picked when the waste shows a Seven, and a Ten or Queen may be picked when the waste shows a Jack. The picked card replaces the waste-top and becomes the new reference rank.
What is the King–Ace wrap?
Aces and Kings are considered adjacent in rank. A King on the waste accepts an Ace pick (and a Queen pick); an Ace on the waste accepts a King pick (and a Two pick). The wrap turns the rank scale into a closed loop, which is what makes long chains across the high and low ranks possible.
When can I pick a peak card?
A peak card is pickable only when it is uncovered, which means both of the cards immediately below it have already been removed. At the start of the hand only the ten base-row cards are uncovered; removing a base-row card may uncover a parent above it once the parent's other child is also gone.
Why is my tap on a peak card ignored?
Either the card is still covered — at least one of the two cards immediately below it is still on the table — or its rank is not adjacent to the current waste-top once wrap is applied. Hover the candidate to see whether it is highlighted as legal; covered cards are dimmed and the highlight is suppressed.
Does the stock recycle?
No. In this variant the stock cycles through exactly once. Every stock tap is a one-shot move and the stock count visibly decreases. Plan stock taps so that the new waste-top extends a chain you can keep running rather than burning a card with no follow-up.
Is every TriPeaks deal winnable?
No. A meaningful fraction of random TriPeaks layouts are unwinnable from the deal because the chain-graph through the peaks contains an unreachable card. We use a curated seed library that biases toward solvable deals so most casual sessions finish with a clean clear.
How does TriPeaks differ from Pyramid Solitaire?
Pyramid clears its 28 cards by removing pairs that sum to thirteen; TriPeaks clears its 28 cards one at a time using a ±1 rank-adjacency rule with wrap. Pyramid emphasizes combinatorial pair-spotting, while TriPeaks emphasizes long sequential chains. The two are often packaged together because they exercise complementary skills.
Why is the waste pile not interactive?
Cards always move TO the waste, never FROM it. The waste-top is the reference rank for the next pick, but it is not pickable itself — there is nothing to put it onto. The display treats the waste as a read-only label so players don't waste taps trying to interact with it.
Can I undo a move?
Yes. The undo button reverses your most recent move and continues to step back through the move history as long as the undo stack has entries. Use it freely to explore branching choices, but try to limit yourself to one or two undos per hand if you want to develop stronger look-ahead.
Is this game free?
Yes — TriPeaks Solitaire is free to play in your browser. No signup, no ads, no microtransactions, no card images downloaded over the network. We render cards as text using Unicode suit characters for instant, accessible play.