How to Play TriPeaks Solitaire
There is a rhythm to TriPeaks that the slower games never quite reach. You clear 3 peaks of cards by hopping from one to the next, each play just a rank above or below the last. A good run can carry you right across the board before it breaks. The single rule takes seconds to learn and the game moves fast, though it is, fair warning, hard to stop at one. What divides a strong player from a lucky one is almost all in how long those runs get.
The goal
You are trying to clear all 3 peaks, the full set of 28 cards built into them. Each card you take lands on the waste pile next to the table and turns into the card your next move plays from. Bring the peaks down to nothing and the game is won. The stock and the waste exist to keep you in motion, but they are not the target. The peaks are the entire job, and everything else is in service of flattening them.
How the table is laid out
The name is really a picture of the deal. Twenty eight cards are set out as 3 peaks standing in a row, each one a small triangle, a card at the tip resting on 2, those resting on 3, and all 3 peaks sitting on one unbroken row of 10 cards that runs along the bottom and links them together. Every card is dealt face up, so unlike some versions nothing is hidden, the whole board is there to read from the first second. Off to the side is the stock you draw from, and beside it the waste, which starts with a single card already turned up and waiting to be played on.
How the cards move
Only the cards at the very bottom are in play to start, the 10 along the base, because a card can be lifted only when nothing overlaps it. The others come free as the cards below them clear away. To play a card you hold it against the one face up on the waste, and if it is one rank higher or one rank lower, in any suit, you take it. It slides onto the waste and becomes the new card to match. A seven goes on a six or an eight. Color and suit never enter into it, only the rank.
One twist gives the game its flow: the ranks wrap around. An Ace sits next to both the two and the King, so off a King you can play an Ace, and off an Ace you can play a two or a King right back. That loop from the top of the sequence to the bottom is what lets a good run keep rolling instead of dead ending the moment you reach a King or an Ace.
The stock
When nothing on the peaks matches the waste card, you turn one card from the stock. It lands on the waste, hands you a fresh rank to build from and often springs the board open again. The stock holds 23 cards and it is dealt once through. There is no scooping it up to go round a second time, so a draw is worth treating as the limited thing it is, something you spend to break a jam rather than reach for out of habit while a peak move is still sitting there.
Long runs are everything
The gap between clearing a peak or two and clearing the whole table is the length of your runs. A run is a string of cards you play one after another without touching the stock, each a single rank step from the last, rising and falling through the sequence as the cards allow. Because the ranks loop, one run can travel a surprising distance, up from a six to a seven and an eight, back down through five and four and three, around past the Ace to a King, and onward. Every card you fold into a run is a card you did not spend a draw to reach, and since the stock runs out, the player who strings the longest runs is the one with draws still in hand when the board turns awkward. Before you reach for the stock, hunt hard for a path through the cards already showing.
How winnable it is
TriPeaks is one of the kinder members of the solitaire family. By the count of the designer who built it, comfortably more than 9 deals in 10 can be solved with sound play, which is a different world from a game like Pyramid, where most shuffles are lost before a card is touched. So when a TriPeaks game slips away, it is usually a run you could have built and walked past, not a deal that was never winnable. On top of that the games here are certified, every one checked for a solution ahead of time, so the board in front of you can always come down. The wider story of which deals can and cannot be solved sits in is solitaire winnable.
Winning play
A handful of habits lift TriPeaks from a game you mostly win to one you almost always do.
Trace the run before you start it
Since every card is on view, you can follow a chain in your head before committing to it. Look for the move that sets up another, and that one a third, instead of grabbing the first legal card and hoping the rest appears.
Bring the peaks down together
Tearing one peak apart while the other 2 stand full height leaves you short of choices. Spreading your removals across all 3 keeps more cards exposed at any moment, and more exposed cards means more ways to keep a run going.
Free the cards that open the most
Clearing some cards exposes 2 fresh ones above, while clearing others opens nothing at all. The first kind is worth more, so when you can choose, take the card that widens the board over the one tucked at a dead end.
Keep the stock in reserve
Every draw you hold back is a move saved for later, when the easy chains are spent and you need one particular card. Draw to launch a new run when the table is genuinely stuck, not to skip the effort of spotting the run already in front of you.
Remember the wrap
The loop from King to Ace is the easiest rule to forget, and it is where plenty of missed runs hide. When you stall on a King or an Ace, check the far end of the sequence before you give it up and draw.
Common questions
What does one rank above or below mean in TriPeaks?
The card you play has to be a single step in rank from the card on the waste, in either direction and any suit. On a seven you can play a six or an eight. The sequence also loops, so an Ace counts as next to a King as well as a two, which keeps a run from stopping dead at the ends.
Is TriPeaks Solitaire hard?
Not especially, and that is part of its charm. The rule is simple and the great majority of deals can be solved, so it plays quickly and rewards you often. The skill is not in surviving a brutal shuffle but in seeing the longest run on a board where everything is already visible.
Can you win every game of TriPeaks?
Not quite every one, but a great deal more often than most solitaire manages, since the format is generous and a clear majority of shuffles have a solution. The deals served here are certified solvable in advance, so the one you are playing can be cleared, and any loss traces back to the run you chose.
How is TriPeaks different from Pyramid?
Both ask you to clear a shape made of cards, but the method splits them. Pyramid has you removing pairs that add up to 13 and loses most of its deals, while TriPeaks has you running single cards up and down by rank and wins most of them. One is a careful puzzle, the other a quick chase.