Patience · Game 183 of 388 ♦
Pyramid
Take apart a pyramid of 28 cards by finding pairs that add up to 13 – quick, simple and harder to win than it looks.
- Players
- 1
- Duration
- 5 min
- Age
- 7+
- Difficulty
- easy
- Cards
- 52 cards, no jokers
- Skill – Luck
- SkillLuck
- Everyone for themselves – Lots of interaction
- Everyone for themselvesLots of interaction
- Simple – Complex
- SimpleComplex
- Quick – Long
- QuickLong
Mood relaxedlearned in 5 minutes
Collections: Solitaire games · Games for kids
Full rules
Overview
Pyramid is a quick patience (a card game for one player, also called solitaire). You lay out 28 cards as a pyramid and take it apart by removing pairs of cards that add up to 13. Kings count 13 on their own and are removed singly. To win, you must get rid of every card – the pyramid and the rest of the deck. That is hard: under these strict rules only about one game in 50 comes out, so many players count clearing the pyramid alone as a success (see Variants).
- Players: 1
- You need: one standard 52-card deck without jokers, and a little room.
- Time: about 5 minutes per game.
Card values
| Card | Value | Pairs with |
|---|---|---|
| A | 1 | Q |
| 2 | 2 | J |
| 3 | 3 | 10 |
| 4 | 4 | 9 |
| 5 | 5 | 8 |
| 6 | 6 | 7 |
| J / Q | 11 / 12 | 2 / A |
| K | 13 | alone |
Suits don't matter: 6♠ + 7♥ is just as good as 6♠ + 7♠.
Setup
- Shuffle and deal the pyramid face up in seven rows: 1 card at the top, then 2 cards, 3 cards and so on down to 7 cards in the bottom row – 28 cards in all.
- The rows overlap: each card lies partly on top of the two cards in the row above it, like bricks in a wall. So each card (except in the bottom row) is partly covered by two cards of the next row.
- The remaining 24 cards go face down beside the pyramid as the stock (draw pile). Leave room next to it for the waste (a face-up pile for unused cards) and for a discard pile where removed cards go.
Free cards
A card in the pyramid is free when no card of the row below lies on it. At the start only the seven cards of the bottom row are free. When you remove both cards that cover a card, that card becomes free.
Playing
You make one move after another:
- Remove a pair: take any two free cards that add up to 13 and put them on the discard pile.
- Remove a King: a free King goes to the discard pile on its own.
- Turn a card from the stock: turn the top card of the stock face up. You can pair it with a free pyramid card or with the top card of the waste. If you can't use it (or don't want to), put it face up on the waste.
- Use the waste: the top card of the waste is always free and can be paired with a free pyramid card or with the card just turned from the stock. When it's gone, the card below it becomes the top card.
You go through the stock only once – there is no redeal.
Example: The bottom row shows 8♣ 5♥ K♦ 3♠ 10♦ Q♣ 6♠. Remove the K♦ alone, 8♣ + 5♥ and 3♠ + 10♦. That frees the first four cards of row 6: A♦, 9♠, 4♥ and 7♣. Now Q♣ + A♦ and 6♠ + 7♣ can go as well, then 9♠ + 4♥ – and that frees the K♣ in row 5, which goes on its own. The free cards are now 3♥, 6♦, Q♦ and 5♠; no two of them make 13, so turn a card from the stock.
Winning
You win when all 52 cards are on the discard pile. The game is lost when the stock is used up and no more pairs can be made.
Tips for beginners
- Before removing a pair, look at which cards it will free. Prefer moves that open up the pyramid evenly.
- Two free pyramid cards that add up to 13 are sometimes better paired with stock or waste cards instead – that way you get rid of more cards.
- Watch out for pairs that block each other: a card lying on its own partner (say a 4 on a 9) can never be paired with that card.
- Remember what is on the waste – cards buried there can only come back if you remove the ones above.
Variants
All optional – agree before you start.
- Pyramid only: you win as soon as the pyramid is cleared, even with cards left in the stock or waste.
- Redeals (Par Pyramid): when the stock is used up, turn the waste over without shuffling and go through it again – up to two redeals, so three passes in all.
- Overlapping pairs: a free card may be paired with one of the two cards it partly covers (a 4 lying on a 9), as long as no other card covers that one.
- Tut's Tomb: turn the stock three cards at a time, as in draw-three Klondike, and go through it as often as you like while pairs can still be made.
Background & history
- Family: Patience (adding and pairing: remove cards in pairs that make 13)
- Origin: unknown; earliest known descriptions from the 1920s
- Also known as: Pile of Twenty-Eight, Elizabeth's Solitaire (early name)
- Related games: Thirteens (Simple Addition), Tut's Tomb, Giza, Triangle
Pyramid belongs to an old group of patiences in which you don't sort cards into suits but remove them in pairs that add up to a fixed number – usually 13, the value of the King. According to Michael Keller's research at Solitaire Laboratory, the modern game may first appear in Dean Bryden's book Fun With Cards (1927) under the name "Elizabeth's Solitaire", and Johnson and Pope's 30 Games of Solitaire (1928) may be the first book to call it Pyramid. The name "Pile of Twenty-Eight" is often given as an alternative – Morehead and Mott-Smith use it in 1949 – but Keller has not found an old source that uses it as the main name.
In The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games (1949), Morehead and Mott-Smith estimated the game at four minutes, with a chance of winning of only one in 50. They also described Par Pyramid, with two redeals and a score, so that the game could even be played as a contest over six games. Keller's computer analyses suggest that careful play wins about 6% of games with one pass through the stock.
Pyramid became widely known through computers. Microsoft released a version called Tut's Tomb in its Entertainment Pack 2 in 1991, and Pyramid is part of today's Microsoft Solitaire Collection. Computer versions differ in details – how many redeals there are, and whether clearing the pyramid alone counts as a win.