Pyramid Solitaire

Pyramid Solitaire arranges cards in a seven-row pyramid shape. Your goal is to clear them all by pairing cards whose values add up to 13. Kings are worth 13 and can be removed on their own. Queens (12) pair with Aces (1), Jacks (11) with Twos (2), and so on.

Only exposed cards — ones not covered by any other card — can be picked. This creates real strategy. You often need to remove cards in a specific order to reach the ones you need. The stock pile gives you more options, but not every deal is solvable. Smart choices matter.

Pyramid Solitaire comes from a family of European "adding" card games going back to at least the early 1800s. The Egyptian theme came later. The 28-card pyramid shape (1+2+3+…+7) was a natural visual that publishers paired with images of the Giza pyramids in the 20th century.

It's one of the least winnable solitaires by the numbers. Studies of the standard one-redeal version put the win rate around 0.5–1%. The three-redeal version gets up to about 5%. Most players treat it as a calm, meditative pattern game rather than something you actually expect to win.