The rules of Pyramide
In brief
A pyramid of 28 face-up cards, a waste, and 23 stock cards. Two free cards whose values add up to 13 are removed together; a King is removed on its own. The top card of the waste counts as a free card. You can go through the stock any number of times. You win by removing all 28 cards from the pyramid.
Setup
Play uses a 52-card deck with no jokers. The app lays out 28 cards in a pyramid of 7 rows: 1 card at the top, then 2, 3, and so on up to 7 cards at the bottom. All are face up. Each card is partly covered by two cards in the row below. The app turns one card face up onto the waste and places the remaining 23 cards face down in the stock.
Stock: 23 cards; waste: 7 of diamonds. Row 1: jack of diamonds; row 2: 6 of clubs, 7 of hearts; row 3: ace of spades, 4 of diamonds, queen of spades; row 4: 5 of hearts, 3 of diamonds, 6 of hearts, 8 of spades; row 5: king of hearts, king of clubs, ace of diamonds, king of spades, 9 of clubs; row 6: queen of clubs, 2 of clubs, 8 of diamonds, 10 of diamonds, 10 of spades, jack of spades; row 7: 7 of clubs, 10 of clubs, 3 of hearts, 4 of hearts, 3 of spades, king of diamonds, 7 of spades.
Free cards
A pyramid card is free when both cards covering it have been removed. At the start, only the 7 bottom cards are free. The top card of the waste is also free; the other waste cards must wait. Tapping a covered card, such as D♣ in row 6 at the start, does nothing; with error help enabled, the app displays “This card is blocked by another card”.
Pairs that add up to 13
Tap a free card, then another: if their values add up to 13, both are removed. The Ace is worth 1, the Jack 11, the Queen 12, and the other cards their face value. The possible pairs are therefore: A + Q, 2 + J, 3 + 10, 4 + 9, 5 + 8, 6 + 7. Suits do not matter. Two cards that do not add up to 13, such as 7♣ and 7♠ at the bottom at the start, are not removed: the app displays “The sum must equal 13” and keeps the second card selected.
The King is worth 13 on its own: a single tap removes it, whether it is free in the pyramid or on the waste. In deal PY1-N-AAAAAAS, the first move removes R♦ from the bottom, and the second removes the pair 10♣ + 3♠.
Stock: 23 cards; waste: 7 of diamonds. Row 1: jack of diamonds; row 2: 6 of clubs, 7 of hearts; row 3: ace of spades, 4 of diamonds, queen of spades; row 4: 5 of hearts, 3 of diamonds, 6 of hearts, 8 of spades; row 5: king of hearts, king of clubs, ace of diamonds, king of spades, 9 of clubs; row 6: queen of clubs, 2 of clubs, 8 of diamonds, 10 of diamonds, 10 of spades, jack of spades; row 7: 7 of clubs, 3 of hearts, 4 of hearts, 7 of spades.
The stock and waste
You can tap the stock at any time to move its top card face up onto the waste. The top card of the waste can pair with a free pyramid card, or be removed on its own if it is a King. When the stock is empty, tapping it recycles the waste: all its cards return to the stock in the same order, with no limit on passes. In the app, the drawn card cannot pair with the waste card it covers: only the top card counts.
The end of the game
The game is won as soon as all 28 pyramid cards have been removed, even if cards remain in the stock or waste. The app only declares a dead end, “No more moves possible”, when the stock and waste are empty and no pair or King can be played. As long as a card remains to draw or recycle, the game continues, even when nothing else can be removed: this is the case with deal PY1-N-AAAAAAJ, where no more than 14 cards can ever be removed. You then have to start a new game.
Scoring
The score starts at 0. Each card removed from the pyramid earns 10 points: a pair of two pyramid cards is worth 20, a pair using the waste 10, and a King from the pyramid 10. A card taken from the waste earns nothing. Drawing and recycling cost nothing. A winning game therefore always scores 280 points; time and move count (removals, draws, and recycling) distinguish games in the statistics.
Undo and game codes
The Undo button undoes the last 100 actions: pairs, Kings, draws, and recycling. The cards return to their places and the points earned by the move are deducted; the move counter, however, does not go down.
Each deal has a code, displayed during play, such as PY1-N-AAAAAAS. Pasting it into the New Game window deals exactly the same cards again.
The app's choices and the traditional rule
Pyramide has no official rulebook. Compared with the rules described by the sources, the app makes some choices worth knowing:
- Winning: clearing the pyramid is enough, without using up the stock (the sources’ “relaxed” win condition).
- Unlimited recycling: the basic rules do not allow another pass through the stock; the app allows as many as you like.
- Only one waste card in play: the drawn card cannot pair with the waste card it covers.
- No pairing a card with a card covering it: a card can never pair with a card that still covers it.
The literature also mentions variants: a strict win condition (you must also remove all cards from the stock and waste, not just the pyramid); limited redeals (only a limited number of passes through the stock, or none at all); stock against waste (the card just drawn can pair with the top card of the waste); pairing a card with its covering card (a card can pair with the only card still covering it). See the sources.