Pyramid Solitaire Online

Pyramid Solitaire turns rank arithmetic into a planning puzzle

The entire goal is visible from the first deal: remove every one of the twenty-eight cards in the seven-row pyramid. Two exposed cards can leave together when their rank values total thirteen. Ace counts one, Jack eleven, Queen twelve and King thirteen. Because a King already equals thirteen, an exposed King can be removed by itself. Suits and colors never change the arithmetic.

Only exposed cards can leave the pyramid

A pyramid card is exposed only when both cards directly below it have already been removed. The seven cards in the bottom row start exposed. Removing a pair can open one card, two cards or sometimes no useful new card at all. That dependency is the main strategic layer: two pairs may both total thirteen, but the pair that exposes stronger follow-up choices can be much better.

The stock creates a second source of pairs

Twenty-four cards remain after the pyramid is dealt. Draw them one at a time to the waste. Only the top waste card is available, and it can pair with one exposed pyramid card whose rank completes thirteen. An exposed King on the waste can also be removed by itself. Cards deeper in the waste are not secretly available, so the visible top card is the only stock-side decision.

Practice supports one pass and three passes

One-pass Practice is the stricter rule: once all stock cards have been drawn, the stock is finished. Three-pass Practice permits two orderly recycles of the waste, giving more chances to revisit a useful card. The rule is fixed before the deal and shown in the interface. Daily Pyramid uses one pass so a given calendar date has one stable contract rather than several difficulty interpretations.

Deterministic deals are replayable, not automatically solvable

A Practice seed always shuffles the same fifty-two cards into the same pyramid and stock. A Daily date always starts from the same date-derived deal in this build. That makes refreshes, autosave and replays reproducible. It does not prove that every shuffled deal has a winning line, so the game deliberately avoids labels such as guaranteed solvable unless a separate solver has actually established that claim.

Hint shows a legal action, not a magical solution

Hint first looks for an exposed King or a legal pair totaling thirteen. If no removal is available, it can point to the stock draw or a permitted recycle. Every Hint is passed through the same rule functions as a real move. The tool does not claim to foresee the globally optimal path through the whole deal, and using Hint marks the session Assisted.

Undo is for learning from branch choices

Undo restores the exact game position from before the latest removal, stock draw or recycle. That includes the pyramid, stock, waste, pass count, move count and selected card. The run becomes Assisted so a replay with corrections cannot silently replace a clean result. The completed game is still useful for practice and local history.

Why equal-looking pairs can have different value

Suppose both a five-plus-eight and a six-plus-seven are available. If one pair removes two bottom cards that jointly uncover a Queen while the other pair opens nothing, the first move can create a new Ace-plus-Queen opportunity. Pyramid Solitaire rewards looking at the cards each pair is supporting, not merely scanning the current row for a correct sum.

Kings are simple but still affect timing

An exposed King requires no partner. Removing it is always legal, but even a King can matter to the dependency structure because it may be one of the two cards covering a parent. The interface therefore treats King removal as a real move with Undo and autosave rather than silently clearing Kings before you can inspect the board.

Local records stay factual

The specialist stores games played, wins, clean wins, the best number of pyramid cards cleared in an unfinished game and a specialist Daily streak. These are records from this browser only. There is no population percentile, world rank, IQ score or implication that one result measures intelligence. Clearing the pyramid is the objective; the rest is personal history.

Autosave follows the deal identity

Practice autosaves are keyed to the exact seed and pass rule. Daily autosave is keyed to the date. Returning to the same identity restores the pyramid, stock, waste, pass number and assistance state. Clearing browser storage removes those records because there is no account or remote database pretending to synchronize progress.

The card math stays transparent

The useful rank complements are easy to learn: Ace pairs with Queen, two with Jack, three with ten, four with nine, five with eight and six with seven. Kings leave alone. The interface leaves the ranks visible instead of adding a hidden matching system, so the arithmetic pattern becomes automatic through repetition.

Mobile and desktop use the same engine

On a phone, tap an exposed card and then its partner. On desktop, the same card buttons work with mouse or keyboard focus. Covered pyramid cards are visible but disabled until both children disappear. The visual layout changes size with the viewport, while the legality calculation remains identical across devices.

No wagering or paid randomness

This is a free browser-local solitaire puzzle. There is no wagering, chips, prizes, stakes, purchases, paid random draw, loot box or cash-out mechanic. The shuffle is generated locally from a deterministic seed. The game also does not sell a retry or a better deal; Fresh Practice simply creates another local seed.

Fresh Practice changes the deal, not the rules

Fresh Practice generates another seed while retaining your selected one-pass or three-pass rule. This produces a new pyramid without manufacturing a separate page for every seed, rank pair or stock configuration. The two focused search pages exist for the actual distinct intents—Pyramid Solitaire and its date-stable Daily version.

A good first habit is to inspect what each move uncovers

Before removing an obvious pair, look one row upward. Ask which parent cards become exposed and whether those parent ranks have visible complements. Stock cards eventually pass by, while pyramid cards are constrained by coverage. Planning around those dependencies makes the game more than a sequence of independent addition problems.