Pyramid Solitaire | Play Free Online
Pyramid Solitaire is a single-deck matching patience where the table is laid out as a seven-row pyramid of twenty-eight cards. Instead of building sequences or filling foundations like Klondike, the only objective is to remove the entire pyramid by repeatedly canceling out pairs of exposed cards whose ranks add to exactly thirteen. The mathematical purity of the sum-thirteen rule, the visible triangular geometry, and the short hands — a typical victory lands in three to five minutes — have made Pyramid one of the most-played solitaires in the world, equally welcoming to absolute beginners and to puzzle enthusiasts who enjoy planning two and three moves ahead.
How to Play
- Pyramid Solitaire uses a standard 52-card deck arranged in a seven-row pyramid: row 1 holds a single card, row 2 holds two cards, and so on down to row 7, which holds seven cards. Twenty-eight cards form the pyramid in total. The remaining twenty-four cards become the stock, with no cards initially in the waste or discard pile.
- Cards are exposed when nothing rests on top of them. At deal-out only the entire bottom row is exposed. As you remove cards from the pyramid, the cards immediately above become uncovered when both of their child positions below are empty — the pyramid geometry guarantees every interior card has two children that must both leave before it can play.
- Card values follow a strict numeric scheme: Ace counts as 1, the numbered cards 2 through 10 count as their face value, Jack is 11, Queen is 12, and King is 13. Suits never matter for matching — only ranks. Color and suit affordances on the cards are purely visual; you can pair red with red, black with black, or any mix.
- To remove cards, tap any two exposed cards whose ranks sum to exactly thirteen. Common pairs include Ace-Queen, 2-Jack, 3-Ten, 4-Nine, 5-Eight, and 6-Seven. Both cards in the pair must be currently uncovered at the moment of removal, and at least one of them may come from the waste pile rather than the pyramid itself.
- Kings, valued at 13, are special: they can be removed by themselves with a single tap, since their value already equals the target sum. You can hold a King in reserve until the position needs it, or you can remove it immediately if its parent is the next bottleneck — the choice is purely strategic.
- When you cannot find a legal pair on the board, tap the stock pile to deal one card to the waste pile. The exposed top of the waste pile may then be combined with any exposed pyramid card to make a sum of thirteen, or paired with another card you uncover later.
- In this variant, the stock cycles through exactly once. There is no recycling: every stock card represents a single opportunity. Plan your stock taps carefully — once a card lands in the waste and is not consumed, it stays available, but the supply of unseen stock cards is strictly finite and visibly counts down as you play.
- You win when all twenty-eight pyramid cards have been removed. Cards still left in the stock or waste at that moment do not prevent victory — the pyramid is the only thing that has to be cleared. Once the apex falls, the game ends and a banner declares the win.
Strategy
Prioritize uncovering over flashy pairs
Every card removed from the bottom or middle of the pyramid releases the row above it. Pairs that share a single parent free that parent immediately, while pairs that each occupy a different parent free two cards in one move. Look for double-release opportunities before any other move; they compound through the rest of the hand and frequently turn a stuck position into a winning one.
Treat Kings as planned currency
Because Kings remove themselves without a partner, they are always available — a King exposed early often releases two parents in one tap, and a King in the waste can be cleared later with nothing lost. Do not burn a King the instant you see it; first check whether its removal unlocks a downstream cascade you can capitalize on. A well-timed King is sometimes the difference between a stalled deal and a clean clear.
Count remaining ranks before committing
Before you spend an exposed Queen on a waste-pile Ace, ask whether another Ace is buried behind expensive blockers. If only one Ace remains and it lives in the pyramid, save your Queens for that Ace and clear the waste Ace some other way — or accept that it will never be cleared, which is legal as long as the pyramid empties. Awareness of the four-of-each-rank ceiling is one of the cheapest skills to develop in this game.
Plan the stock as a finite resource
With no recycle, every stock tap is a one-shot. Try to defer stock taps until the new candidate has a guaranteed partner — ideally a partner that releases a critical parent. If you tap blindly and the new waste card has no immediate match, you have burned a turn and added a passive obstacle that may stay in the waste until the hand ends. Strong Pyramid players often finish a deal with several unused stock cards still in reserve.
Read the bottom row before any move
The seven cards exposed at deal-out are the only legal moves available initially. Map every pair they could form, work out which parents each pair would uncover, and chase the chain forward two or three steps. A few seconds of look-ahead at the start of every hand massively raises your average win rate compared to playing the first legal pair you spot.
Watch for orphans early
If both copies of a rank's partner have already been consumed, every remaining card of that rank becomes an orphan with no legal way to leave. Once you spot a forming orphan deep in the pyramid, treat the line that strands it as a losing branch and back out before you commit. Undoing one risky move is much cheaper than restarting a fully locked hand from scratch.
Use the waste pile as a scratchpad
It is perfectly legal to combine an exposed pyramid card with the waste-top, and many strong lines deal one or two extra stock cards just to bring up a particular partner. The waste also acts as a buffer where stranded cards can sit harmlessly; just make sure you don't deal so many extras that you starve the stock you need later in the hand.
Don't grind dead deals
Pyramid is a game of partial wins as well as full ones. If a hand locks itself in — no legal pyramid pairs, no playable waste candidate, no exposed Kings — recognize the loss quickly and start a new deal. Studying lost positions teaches the patterns of doomed pyramids better than re-grinding the same dead hand over and over.
History
Pyramid Solitaire dates from the early twentieth century, surfacing in the same compilation books that gave us Klondike and Spider. Its triangular silhouette and its sum-thirteen matching rule were instantly recognizable to anyone familiar with whist-era card mathematics, and the simplicity of the mechanic — no sequences to build, no foundations to fill — made Pyramid the natural choice for short, light play sessions in railway carriages and around the kitchen table.
Through the second half of the twentieth century the game travelled alongside other classic patiences in published anthologies, gathering nicknames such as Tut's Tomb, Pile of 28, and Solitaire 13. The variants differ in small details — some allow waste recycling, others adopt a different stock format, and several introduce scoring tiers — but the pyramid layout and the sum-thirteen rule are universal across every published version.
Pyramid reached a vast new audience when Microsoft included it in successive versions of Microsoft Solitaire Collection starting in the early 2010s, and again when web and mobile solitaire portals adopted the game as a standard alongside Klondike, FreeCell, and Spider. Today it is among the five most-played solitaires in the world, valued for hands that finish in under five minutes and for the clean, pattern-recognition feel of pair-spotting.
Our implementation uses the single-pass stock variant: the deck cycles through once, with no redeal. We chose this variant because it rewards careful planning over brute-force redealing — the same design philosophy that informs our Klondike Turn 1 and Spider 1-Suit variants. The deals you encounter come from a curated seed library that biases toward solvable layouts so that most casual sessions end with a clean victory rather than a stalemate.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Pyramid Solitaire?
Pyramid Solitaire is a single-deck patience game where the goal is to clear a 28-card pyramid by removing pairs of exposed cards whose ranks add to thirteen. Kings count as thirteen and remove themselves; suits are irrelevant. The game tests pattern recognition and look-ahead more than sequence-building.
Which cards add up to thirteen?
Ace plus Queen, 2 plus Jack, 3 plus Ten, 4 plus Nine, 5 plus Eight, and 6 plus Seven. King is worth thirteen on its own. Suits never matter — any Ace pairs with any Queen, even if both are of the same color.
How are Kings removed?
A King is removed by itself as soon as it is exposed — tap it once and it goes to the discard pile. Because Kings need no partner, they are the safest cards to release: an exposed King is always playable. Time their removal to unlock a particularly stubborn parent.
Can I pair a pyramid card with the waste-top?
Yes. The top card of the waste pile is fully eligible as one half of any sum-thirteen pair. Many advanced lines deliberately deal one extra stock card to bring a matching partner to the top of the waste before completing a critical pyramid pair.
Can I pair two cards already in the waste together?
Only the visible top card of the waste pile is in play, so two cards already buried in the waste cannot be revived. However, if a freshly dealt stock card creates a thirteen-sum with the previous waste-top, you can clear the pair on the spot.
Does the stock recycle?
No. In this variant the stock cycles through exactly once. Every tap on the stock is a one-shot move; if the new card has no immediate pair you may still match it later, but you cannot redeal the waste.
Is every Pyramid deal winnable?
No. Random Pyramid layouts are only solvable a fraction of the time, and a smaller fraction is practical for human play. We use a curated seed library that biases toward solvable deals so that most casual sessions end with a clean victory.
How is Pyramid different from Tut's Tomb?
Tut's Tomb is essentially Pyramid with Egyptian theming and, in some implementations, the addition of a stock redeal. The core matching rule is identical. Other relatives include Triangle, Pile of 28, and Solitaire 13.
Why does the game refuse a pair I tap?
There are two common reasons. First, one of the two cards is still covered — it has a card resting on it, so the surrounding selection outline disappears. Second, the two ranks don't add to thirteen; double-check the numeric values (Ace = 1, Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13).
Can I undo a move?
Yes. The undo button reverses your most recent move and continues reversing moves as long as the undo stack has entries. Use it freely to explore branching strategies — undo is not penalized in casual play.
Is this game free?
Yes — Pyramid Solitaire is free to play in your browser. No signup, no ads, no microtransactions, no card images downloaded over the network. We render the cards as text using Unicode suit characters for instant, accessible play.