Pyramid solitaire is a fun solitaire game that is quite different from normal solitaire: in most solitaire games you build cards on top of a base, but in Pyramid solitaire you remove cards! Cards can only be removed when they total 13. With its easily recognizable design (pyramid-shaped) and requiring a combination of luck and skill, it is a popular solitaire game played by many.
The basic rules are…
- You win if you can remove ALL cards from the game.
- The cards are drawn in pairs, when they add up to 13
- You can deal from the heel at any time
- You get 2 heel reoffers
- Only a maximum of 2 cards are visible from the talon at any one time
You can only use cards that are completely uncovered (if a card is in the pyramid but covered by another card, you can’t select it)
For example, if a part of the pyramid looks like this…
... K...
... Q.7...
..2.4.7..
.5.8.K.J.
Initially, you will not be able to pair the jack with the deuce (because the deuce is covered by cards five and eight). Start by eliminating the five and eight. The 2 card is now face up and can be paired with the Jack card.
The possible pairings in Pyramid Solitaire are…
King
Six Seven
Five Eight
Four Nine
Three Ten
Two Jack
Ace Queen
Kings are a special case, eliminating themselves.
Tips for pyramid solitaire
- Don’t just automatically match any card you see. Knowing when to match and when to wait is often the difference between winning and losing.
- Always remove kings as soon as you can. There is never any reason to keep them in play.
- Look for cards “caught” by other cards below. You may need to remove specific cards in a certain order to access them
Here’s an example of a “trapped” card…
... 2...
... 5.3...
..8.8.4..
.7.8.6.6.
Notice that the five has 3 eights below it. The fives are eliminated with the eights, so we must pay special attention to this inversion. That 5 cannot match any of the eight below. Wherever the other 8 are, we’ll have to save them for THIS five. If we use it on another five, then we can never remove this one and the game will become unwinnable.
That might seem a bit tricky, but don’t worry too much about it, you’ll start to pick it up effortlessly the more you play.
Pyramid solitaire can be quite difficult at times. In fact, some offers are actually impossible to complete. However, you can still win quite often – data collected from Dailysol shows that you can win about 60% of the games, so make sure you don’t give up too soon!
