Pyramid Solitaire Pairs Chart & Odds
The complete pairing chart
Every legal removal in Pyramid Solitaire totals exactly 13, which means the entire deck resolves into six fixed partnerships plus the King, which carries the full 13 by itself. There are no other combinations, no suits to consider, and no exceptions. Learn this chart until it is reflex — experienced players do not add card values, they simply see a 5 and feel the missing 8.
| Rank | Value | Partner | Partner value | Copies of each in the deck | Memory hook |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ace | 1 | Queen | 12 | 4 + 4 | The lowest card marries the second-highest |
| 2 | 2 | Jack | 11 | 4 + 4 | Two royals: 2 and J both have hooks in their shapes |
| 3 | 3 | 10 | 10 | 4 + 4 | 3 + 10 — the only pair with a two-digit card |
| 4 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 4 + 4 | 4 and 9: the corners of a phone keypad column |
| 5 | 5 | 8 | 8 | 4 + 4 | 5 + 8 — think a working week plus a weekend... plus a day |
| 6 | 6 | 7 | 7 | 4 + 4 | The neighbors: the only consecutive pair |
| King | 13 | None — removed alone | — | 4 | Kings need no one; click them away on sight |
Two structural facts fall out of the chart. First, the deck splits into 24 potential pairs plus four solo Kings — 24 pair-removals and 4 King-removals would clear all 52 cards, though of course only the 28 pyramid cards need to leave the board for a win. Second, every rank except the King depends on exactly one other rank. Pyramid is really six little two-rank economies running in parallel, and going broke in any one of them can end the game.
Card counting, four copies at a time
Because each rank appears exactly four times, every pairing decision spends scarce currency. Pair the 6 in your waste pile with an exposed 7, and only three 7s remain for the other three 6s in the deck — and it matters enormously which 6s those are. A 6 that never leaves the stock costs you nothing; a 6 sitting in the pyramid with a 7 trapped directly beneath it is a time bomb.
You do not need a memory palace to count Pyramid. The practical method is asymmetric: count only the ranks that look dangerous. In our version the seven base cards are face-up from the deal and covered cards flip as they become exposed, so your census grows as you dig. Start by flagging any rank showing twice or more in the base row, then update the flags with every card that turns over. Discovering a fourth 9 inside the pyramid tells you there are zero 9s left in the stock: every remaining 4 in the deck must eventually meet a 9 that is itself buried in the structure, and the order of those meetings is forced. That single observation decides more games than any other read.
While playing, maintain just two running tallies: partners spent for any flagged rank, and Kings seen (out of four). Kings deserve their own count because they are pure profit — each one removed is a free exposure with no partner cost — and because a stock King you let slip past on a zero-redeal deal is gone forever.
Stuck boards: where the 1-in-30 comes from
Pyramid's brutal reputation is earned — only about 1 deal in 30 falls to perfect play under strict rules. The losses are not close calls spread evenly; most dead deals are killed at the moment of the shuffle by a handful of identifiable structures:
| Fatal pattern | What it looks like | Why it kills the deal |
|---|---|---|
| Vertical partners | A card directly covering one of its own partners (a 6 sitting on a 7) | The pair can never be exposed simultaneously; both need outside partners |
| Partner starvation | All four partners of a pyramid card locked above it or spent early | The card becomes permanently unremovable, freezing everything it covers |
| Rank cluster | Three or four copies of one rank bunched in the pyramid's upper rows | Their partners must arrive via the stock in a workable order — often impossible |
| Apex trap | The crown card's partners all buried in the two rows directly under it | The last card to unlock needs partners that were spent clearing a path to it |
A little expectation-setting helps too. With 28 of the 52 cards dealt into the pyramid, each rank lands there about 2.2 times on average — so expect roughly two Kings in the structure and two in the stock on a typical deal, and treat a pyramid holding all four of any rank as an immediate red flag. The crown card is a King about one deal in thirteen, an instant head start, while a crown whose partners all sit low in the structure is the apex trap in embryo. None of these reads takes more than a glance once the shapes are familiar.
Learning these shapes changes how you lose, which in Pyramid is nearly as valuable as learning how to win. Spot a vertical-partner lock involving two of a rank's four copies and you know the other two copies are now mandatory — plan every move around preserving them, or concede early and spend your minutes on a livable deal. The strategy guide walks through reading a fresh deal for these patterns before your first move.
Redeal strategy: 2, 1, or 0 passes of safety net
After the 28-card deal, 24 cards remain in the stock, flipped one at a time to the waste. Our difficulty settings differ in exactly one number: how many times the waste may be recycled back into the stock. Easy grants two redeals, Medium one, Hard none — and that single parameter should reshape your whole approach to the stock.
Easy (2 redeals). Up to three passes through the stock means as many as 72 waste-card looks. Treat the first pass as reconnaissance: pair only when the move is clearly good — it unburies something, or it spends a rank you have counted as safe — and let marginal matches go by, noting where key partners sit in the flip order. The recycle preserves sequence (the waste flips back over intact), so pass two arrives with a map. Two redeals converts Pyramid from a gambling game into a planning game, which is exactly why it is the right setting for learning the pair chart.
Medium (1 redeal). One recycle rewards a hybrid rhythm: play pass one honestly but conservatively, banking obvious pairs while tracking which critical partners you declined or missed. Before triggering the redeal, stop and count — if the waste holds the last partner of a still-buried pyramid card, plan the entire second pass around catching it. Burning the redeal as a reflex the instant the stock empties is the most common intermediate mistake on this setting.
Hard (0 redeals). Twenty-four flips, each seen once. Every stock card you pass is a permanent goodbye, so the calculus inverts: marginal pairs become mandatory, and the pre-game scan of the pyramid becomes non-negotiable. Prioritize pyramid-with-pyramid pairs whenever they exist — they cost no stock at all — and spend waste cards only where the pyramid cannot pair internally. Expect a win rate well below the headline 3%, and treat every clear as the trophy it is.
One more redeal subtlety worth internalizing: recycling never creates new cards, only new access. If the cards remaining in play cannot form the pairs you need, no number of redeals will save the deal — check the full rules for exactly how the game detects a dead board. Undo is the sharper tool: rewinding to re-order the same information often rescues a game a redeal cannot.
Using the chart at the table
Tie it all together into a pre-move ritual that takes about ten seconds. When a card becomes exposed, name its partner rank from the chart. Count how many of those partners you have seen leave the game. Locate the survivors — pyramid, waste, or unseen stock. Only then decide whether pairing now or holding is better for the cards still buried. Six partnerships, four copies each, one target sum: Pyramid Solitaire hands you the entire probability space on a single page, which is precisely what makes its 1-in-30 summit worth climbing.