Play Cheops — The Pyramid Where Neighbours Match, and You Get One Pass

Cheops takes the pyramid board and throws out the arithmetic. Twenty-eight cards are dealt face-up as a seven-row triangle, each card covering two below it, with twenty-four more in a stock. Two available cards leave together when their ranks are equal or one apart — two sevens, or a seven with a six or an eight. Nothing is ever removed alone, not even a king. And the stock is dealt through exactly once: there is no redeal, so every card you turn is the only chance you get at it. That single restriction is why this is the one game in the pyramid family rated a game of skill rather than luck. Free in your browser, no sign-up, and it works offline once the page has loaded.

How Do You Play Cheops?

Goal: Play Cheops Solitaire free online. A pyramid where cards pair by equal or adjacent rank, nothing leaves alone, and the stock is dealt through only once.

Setup

• Board: 28 cards face-up in a seven-row triangle, each card covering two in the row below.
• Stock: 23 cards, with one card already turned to the waste.
• Redeals: none. One pass through the stock and that is all.
• Discard: removed cards leave the game entirely; there are no foundations.

Rules

• Click two available cards whose ranks are the same or one apart to remove them both.
• Two cards of the same rank pair — a seven with a seven. This is easy to overlook and it is most of the game's freedom.
• The ranks do not wrap: a king and an ace are not neighbours.
• Nothing is removed alone. A king has no special power here; the lone king belongs to the sum of thirteen, and this game has no sum.
• Suits and colours are ignored. Only the rank counts.
• A card is available only when the cards covering it have all gone. Covered cards are dimmed.
• The stock's top card is face up and playable, and so is the waste's top.
• Click the stock to turn its next card to the waste. There is no redeal — when the stock is empty, it is empty.
• You win when every card has been removed. You lose when no pair and no deal remains.

What's the Best Cheops Strategy?

• Treat every stock card as a one-time offer. With no redeal, a card you turn past is gone for the rest of the game. Before each turn, look at what is currently available and ask whether the waste card you are about to bury is needed.
• Remember that same ranks pair. A board showing two eights is a free removal that many players walk straight past. Scan for duplicates before you scan for neighbours.
• Spend the board, save the stock. Board-to-board pairs cost you nothing from the stock. Take every one you can find before turning, because turning is the resource you cannot replace.
• Watch the ends of the rank range. An ace pairs only with another ace or a two, and a king only with another king or a queen. Middle ranks have four ways out; the extremes have two. Clear the extremes while their partners are still reachable.
• Think two removals ahead. A pair that unblocks a card which then pairs with the waste top is worth far more than one that opens a dead end. This is the game where planning genuinely pays, which is why the source rates it skill rather than luck.

A Short History

Cheops is named for the pharaoh whose Great Pyramid gives the family its shape, and it is the odd one out among its relatives. Every other member of the pyramid group is built on the sum of thirteen, with the king as the card that reaches it alone. Cheops replaces the sum with adjacency — equal or neighbouring ranks — which removes the king's privilege entirely, and the source is careful about that: its foundation is rebuilt to refuse a single card, and all three of its click handlers deliberately skip the king shortcut its parent provides. The other change is the stock. Where Pyramid and its relaxed cousin give you three passes, Cheops gives one, and that turns the game from a matter of hoping the right card comes round again into a matter of deciding, now, whether to spend it. The open-source PySolFC collection, whose rules this version follows, rates Cheops as mostly skill — the only game in this family it rates that way.

About This Version

This Cheops runs in your browser — free, no download, no sign-up. Install it as an app on your phone or computer; once installed it works offline. Unlimited undo, statistics, and a daily challenge that gives every player the same deal that day.

Other Solitaire Games to Try

• Relaxed Pyramid — the same board, pairing to thirteen
• Triangle — the pyramid stood on its point
• Neptune — adjacent ranks again, with nothing blocking anything
• Pyramid — the strict pair-to-thirteen original