Pyramid Solitaire strategy: how to win more often

Pyramid Solitaire is a game of quiet arithmetic. You can play Pyramid here whenever you like, and the rules are simple enough to learn in a minute. Winning it, though, is a different matter. Not every deal can be cleared, and even the winnable ones will slip away if you play the obvious move too quickly. This guide assumes you already know how the game works; if you would like a refresher first, the Pyramid Solitaire rules page walks through the layout, the deal, and how cards pair to thirteen.

The good news is that Pyramid rewards patience, and patience is something you can practise. Below are the tactics that turn a run of near-misses into a steady handful of wins.

1. Read the whole pyramid before you touch a card

Before your first move, look at the base row and the two rows above it. Those bottom rows are the wall you must break through, and every card higher up is trapped until the two cards beneath it are gone. Trace a path in your mind: if you clear that base card, which card above does it help uncover? A card only becomes playable when both cards resting on top of it have been removed, so the whole pyramid unlocks in a particular order. Spotting that order early is most of the skill.

2. Prefer pyramid pairs over waste pairs

When you have a choice, spend your move on cards that are stuck in the pyramid rather than on the loose card sitting in the waste. Removing two pyramid cards does double duty: it clears the board and it uncovers whatever was hidden underneath. Pairing a pyramid card with the waste clears only one pyramid card. And pairing the waste with itself clears none at all. Ask of every move, “Does this free something above?” If the answer is yes, that move is almost always the better one.

3. Take Kings the moment they are free

A King is worth thirteen all by itself, so it never needs a partner. The instant a King in the pyramid becomes uncovered, remove it. There is no reason to wait and no card you could save it for. The same goes for a King that lands on the waste. Kings are the one card that can never block you, so clearing them promptly keeps the board tidy and opens paths with zero cost.

4. Keep the two sides of the pyramid even

A common way to lose is to tear open one side of the pyramid while the other stays sealed. If you strip the left columns down to the apex but leave the right side untouched, you may run out of matches on the open side and find every remaining card locked behind an untouched wall. Work both flanks at a roughly even pace. Uncovering cards across the whole width gives you more playable cards at any moment, and more playable cards means more chances to find a pair that sums to thirteen.

5. Do not spend a card the pyramid still needs

This is the tactic that separates careful players from hopeful ones. There are only four cards of each rank in the deck. Suppose two Sevens are buried in the pyramid, each needing a Six as a partner. If you carelessly pair a Six from the waste with a Six-partner elsewhere, you may leave a pyramid Seven with no Six left to match. Before you use a card off the waste, glance at the pyramid and count what still needs that rank. If a matching card is trapped up in the triangle, hold your loose card back for it rather than burning it on the first pair you see.

6. Treat the waste as a workbench, not a dead end

On this site the stock recycles as many times as you like, so the waste is a tool you can revisit rather than a one-time gamble. Two useful habits follow from that. First, you may pair the top waste card directly with the card beneath it on the waste, so watch for a Nine landing on a Four you just turned over. Second, because you can cycle the stock repeatedly, a card you cannot use on this pass may become useful once the pyramid has opened up. Draw through slowly, keep track of what the pyramid is waiting for, and bring that card around again when its partner is finally free.

7. Watch for pairs stacked on top of each other

Sometimes two cards that sum to thirteen sit in the pyramid with one resting directly on the other, for example a Five perched on the Eight it would match. You cannot pair them, because the lower card stays covered until the upper one is removed, and the upper one has to leave by pairing with something else. When you see such a stacked pair, plan a different partner for the top card early. Leaving it for the end often produces a dead position where the last two cards can never meet.

8. The quiet losing moves

Most lost games are not lost by a dramatic blunder. They are lost by a move that looked harmless. The quiet losing moves are these: clearing a match that frees nothing while a board-opening match was available; spending a waste card the pyramid still needed; and racing down one side of the triangle while the other stays walled off. None of these feels like a mistake at the time, which is exactly why they cost you.

The remedy is a short pause before each move. Ask the three questions in turn. Does this free a covered card? Is any rank I am about to spend still trapped in the pyramid? Am I keeping both sides open? If a deal is genuinely unwinnable you will lose anyway, and that is no fault of yours. But on the deals that can be won, this small habit of pausing is what wins them. Take your time. The pyramid is not going anywhere.

For the exact rules and setup, see the Pyramid Solitaire rules page.

If you enjoy Pyramid’s steady, arithmetic pace, two other games on this site have a similar calm feel:

Play Pyramid →