Sources and verification

Sources consulted

• Pyramid (solitaire) (new tab) (Wikipedia, in English): setup (28 cards in 7 overlapping rows, the rest in the stock), pairs of free cards adding up to 13, Kings removed on their own, drawing one card at a time from the stock to a waste, strict or relaxed win conditions, variants
• Patience (game) (new tab) (Wikipedia, in French): terminology: solitaire, patience, stock, waste

Links accessed on 30 October 2026. Pyramide has no official rulebook: the rules described on this site are primarily those of the Pyramide Solitaire app, read from its code; the traditional rules are cited separately.

How the examples are verified

Before each publication, a program checks the 2 example deals and every figure on the site:

• the deal is recalculated from its game code, using the same shuffle as the app, and compared with the deal produced by the app's code;
• 52 distinct cards: 28 in the pyramid, 23 stock cards, 1 waste card;
• every move in the games shown is replayed and must be allowed by the app’s rules; removed cards, stock, waste, score, and move count are compared with those in the app;
• for each deal, an exact solver tries every legal sequence of moves, including recycling, remembering positions already visited and proceeding in increasing order of move count: it calculates the greatest number of cards that can be removed and the shortest game that achieves this. It is implemented twice, once using the app’s code and once independently, and both answers must be identical;
• the rules cited (free cards, pairs adding up to 13, Kings on their own, drawing and recycling, the end of the game, and scoring) are checked against the app’s code.

Strategy tips are presented as advice, separately from the rules. The games shown were found by this program: they prove that a deal can or cannot be won, without saying anything about other deals. Found an error? Write to us through the contact page.