Play Pyramid Solitaire — Free

What is Pyramid Solitaire?

Pyramid Solitaire is a single-player card game built around one very simple idea: pairs of cards that add up to thirteen are taken off the table. At the start a standard 52-card deck is shuffled and twenty-eight cards are dealt face up into a pyramid seven rows tall — one card at the peak, then two, then three, all the way down to a base of seven. The cards overlap like roof tiles, so each card is partly pinned beneath the two cards resting on it. Your goal is to peel the whole pyramid away, pair by pair, until not a single card is left standing.

The counting is friendly and needs no real arithmetic: an Ace is worth 1, the number cards are worth their face value, a Jack is 11, a Queen is 12 and a King is 13. Any two exposed cards that total 13 come off together — a 5 with an 8, a 4 with a 9, an Ace with a Queen — while a King, already worth 13, simply leaves by itself. Known over the years as Pyramid, Tut's Tomb and Solitaire Thirteen, the game blends a little luck with a lot of forward planning, and each deal is a self-contained puzzle that fits neatly into a spare few minutes. On vygam it deals instantly in your browser with tap-to-play controls, an undo button and a timer, so you can pick it up on a phone or a laptop with nothing to install.

How to Play

Everything runs on taps, so nothing has to be dragged. A move is simply blocked and will not happen when you try to:

• pair two cards whose values do not add up to exactly 13;
• take a pyramid card that is still covered by a card in the row below it;
• remove a King alongside another card — a King always leaves on its own;
• keep dealing once you have used all three passes through the stock.

Because the shuffle is random, a deal can occasionally stall with a needed card buried out of reach. That is not the end — tap Undo to rewind your recent moves and try a different order, or start a fresh New game whenever you like.

Pyramid Solitaire Tips & Strategy

Pyramid rewards planning far more than luck once you know what to look for. A handful of habits will turn dead ends into clean, satisfying clears.

1. Open the pyramid before burning the stock

   Every card you draw from the stock is a card you may have to sort through again on a later pass. Prefer pairs that remove cards from the pyramid itself, because those are the moves that actually expose new cards and open up the board. Treat stock draws as a way to fill gaps, not as your main source of pairs.

2. Clear Kings the moment they show

   A King needs no partner and blocks whatever sits beneath it, so an exposed King is almost always worth taking straight away. Removing one instantly frees the two cards it was pinning, which can start a chain of pairs down through the pyramid. There is rarely a reason to leave a King sitting on the board.

3. Read two rows ahead

   Before you commit to a pair, glance at what removing it will expose. Sometimes a lower-value pairing that uncovers two useful cards is worth far more than an easy match that leads nowhere. The best players think about the shape of the pyramid a couple of moves in advance, not just the pair in front of them.

4. Use your passes and Undo to plan

   You get three trips through the stock, so note which cards go by and time your draws to line up with the pyramid cards you still need. When you are unsure which order is best, make a move and watch what opens — the unlimited Undo lets you step back and choose the stronger line without losing the game.

Reading the Pyramid

The overlapping layout is what makes Pyramid a puzzle rather than a race. Each card in the pyramid sits on top of two cards in the row below, and it can only be taken once both of those lower cards have been removed. That means the seven cards along the base are free to play from the opening move, while the single card at the very top is the last one you will ever reach. Learning to see which pairs will unlock the most cards is the whole skill of the game.

A useful way to think about it is to trace the partner each card is waiting for. A 9 is waiting for a 4, a 7 is waiting for a 6, a Jack is waiting for a 2, and so on. When you scan the exposed cards, look for a match that not only comes off cleanly but also lays bare a card that another exposed card has been waiting to pair with. Chaining those unlocks together — rather than grabbing the first 13 you spot — is how a stubborn-looking pyramid quietly falls apart.

Passes, Undo & Best Time

The stock is your reserve of the twenty-four cards that were not dealt into the pyramid. Tapping it turns the top card onto the waste, where it becomes available to pair. When the stock is empty you may turn the waste back over to deal again, and you can do this until you have made three passes in total. Cards you could not use on an early pass often become exactly what you need once the pyramid has opened up, so a card is rarely wasted for good until the final pass.

Undo on vygam is unlimited and steps back through every move — pairs, single Kings and stock draws alike — restoring the board and the timer exactly as they were. It makes Pyramid a comfortable game to experiment with: try a line, see where it leads, and rewind if it stalls. Your fastest winning time is saved in your browser so it is waiting for you on your next visit, giving you a personal best to chase every time you sit down to a fresh deal.

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