How to Play Pyramid Solitaire
Pyramid Solitaire starts with a triangle of 28 cards. Remove exposed pairs whose ranks add up to 13. Kings count as 13 and go on their own. The aim is to clear the triangle, using stock cards as partners when the exposed pyramid cards cannot pair with each other.
Clearing the 28 pyramid cards
Clear all 28 pyramid cards to win. You do not have to empty the stock or waste. A stock draw is useful when it helps remove a pyramid card, but drawing through the deck is not itself part of the winning condition.
How the pyramid is dealt
Deal 28 cards into 7 rows, from a single card at the top down to 7 cards along the base. Each card in a lower row overlaps cards in the row above, and those cannot be played until they are uncovered. The remaining 24 cards form the stock, and the cards you draw collect on the waste beside it.
When a card is free to play
A card can only be touched once nothing rests on top of it. In the pyramid that means the 2 cards directly below it have both gone. At the very start only the 7 cards along the bottom row are free, since every card higher up is pinned by the pair sitting beneath it. Clear those 2 and the card above opens up. So the pyramid comes apart from the bottom up, and most of the skill lies in choosing which cards to free first.
Whatever is sitting on top of the waste counts as free too, ready to match against the triangle. That gives you 2 sources of cards to work with at any moment: the exposed faces around the lower edge of the pyramid, and whatever you have most recently turned up beside it.
The pairs that add up to 13
An Ace is worth 1, a Jack 11 and a Queen 12. Remove any 2 exposed cards totaling 13, regardless of suit or color. A red 5 and a black 8 are a valid pair. The possible pairings are:
- An Ace and a Queen
- A 2 and a Jack
- A 3 and a 10
- A 4 and a 9
- A 5 and an 8
- A 6 and a 7
The King is the exception, because a King is already worth 13 on its own. It needs no partner and leaves the table by itself the instant it is free. That makes Kings the easiest cards to be rid of and, as you will see, cards you want gone quickly rather than left to clog the pyramid.
The stock and its single pass
When the cards on show stop giving you a pair, you turn over the stock. Each tap moves one card onto the waste face up, where its rank is ready to match against the pyramid. The card underneath it in the stock is next, and so on down the pile.
There is one pass through the 24-card stock. Drawing covers the previous waste card, but removing the new waste top can uncover it again. You cannot recycle the waste after the stock runs out, so check for a useful pair before drawing past the current card.
Why Pyramid is hard to win
Most people meet Pyramid expecting something light and come away surprised at how often it stalls. With a single pass through the stock, some random deals cannot be cleared however carefully you play. The usual culprit is the way the triangle locks. A card high in the pyramid waits on 2 below it, and each of those waits on 2 more, so freeing one buried card can mean clearing a whole wedge of the pyramid first, in the one order that happens to work.
Partners can also block each other. Say a 7 is one of the 2 cards covering a 6. That 7 can never pair with that 6, because the 6 only comes free once the 7 has gone. The 6 needs a different 7, from elsewhere in the pyramid or from the stock, and if the other three 7s are buried or already used, that corner of the pyramid stays stuck.
Playing to win
Because so much rides on order, Pyramid rewards a good look before you lift anything. For a closer look at competing pairs, stock timing and difficult endgames, use the Pyramid strategy guide.
Open the middle before the edges
An interior card can overlap 2 cards above it, while an edge card overlaps only one. That makes interior removals worth checking, but they do not always reveal a card immediately: the other covering card must also be gone. Compare the actual cards each available pair will uncover before favoring the center.
Take Kings as soon as they come free
A King costs you nothing to remove and gives you nothing by staying, so there is never a reason to leave one in place blocking the cards under it. Clear them on sight.
Know where the matching cards are
Each rank pairs with just one other rank, and there are only 4 of each in the deck. Before you commit, glance at where a card's possible partners are lying. If the cards that could clear a spot are all buried beneath the card you are trying to reach, that corner is heading for a jam, and it is worth working loose early while you still have the room.
Spend the pyramid before the stock
Every pair you can make from the triangle itself is progress toward the win, while a card pulled from the stock only helps if it clears a pyramid card. Since the stock turns only once, work the table first and draw when it has nothing left to give you.
Look one move past the obvious pair
A pair that is legal right now is not always the pair you want. Taking it can strand the card that needed one of those two as its own partner a moment later. When more than one pairing is on offer, pick the one that leaves the most cards free to pair next, even if it is not the first total of 13 you spot.
Common questions
What do you pair in Pyramid Solitaire?
Remove 2 exposed cards totaling 13: Ace + Queen, 2 + Jack, 3 + 10, 4 + 9, 5 + 8 or 6 + 7. A King needs no partner.
Can you reshuffle the stock in Pyramid?
Not in the version here. The stock is turned over once, 24 cards in all, and when it runs out there is no second pass. Many other apps and card books let you turn the waste back over and go through the stock again, sometimes more than once, which lets more deals come out. The single pass is the stricter form, which is why every card you draw here is worth a moment's thought.
Is Pyramid Solitaire winnable?
Not always. On a random shuffle some deals lock in a way no play can undo, which makes Pyramid one of the harder solitaires to clear. Every Winnable deal on the site has a known solution, so when one stalls, an earlier choice usually went wrong. How we check that a deal can be won.
How is Pyramid different from Klondike?
They share almost nothing beyond the deck. Klondike is about building cards down into runs and up onto foundations, while Pyramid is about taking a fixed shape apart by matching cards to a total. If you are used to Klondike, the hardest habit to drop is the urge to build, since here there is nothing to build at all.