Play Giza — A Pyramid With No Stock, Where Every Card Is Visible
Giza is the pyramid game with nothing hidden. There is no stock and no waste — the entire pack is dealt out at the start, twenty-four cards as eight reserve piles of three and the other twenty-eight as a seven-row triangle. Two available cards leave together when their values add up to thirteen, and a king is thirteen on its own. A triangle card is available while both cards covering it have gone; a reserve card is available when it is the last one of its pile. Because every card is face up from the first move, Giza is a game of planning rather than luck, and it is the one member of the pyramid family where the computer can tell you with certainty when a deal is finished. Free in your browser, no sign-up, and it works offline once the page has loaded.
How Do You Play Giza?
Goal: Play Giza Solitaire free online. An open pyramid game: the whole pack is dealt to a 28-card triangle and eight reserve piles, with no stock to draw from.
Setup
- Board: 28 cards face-up in a seven-row triangle, each card covering two below it.
- Reserves: eight piles of three cards, all face up, fanned below the triangle.
- No stock and no waste. 28 + 24 is the whole 52-card pack.
- Discard: removed cards leave the game; there are no foundations.
Rules
- Card values are ace 1, pip cards their face value, jack 11, queen 12, king 13.
- Click two available cards whose values add up to thirteen: A+Q, 2+J, 3+10, 4+9, 5+8 and 6+7.
- A king is thirteen by itself — from the triangle or from a reserve pile.
- A triangle card is available only when both cards covering it have gone. Covered cards are dimmed.
- A reserve card is available only when it is the last card of its pile. The cards beneath it are shown but cannot be played.
- Reserve cards pair with triangle cards freely; there is no restriction on which may meet which.
- You win when all 52 cards have been removed — the triangle and every reserve pile empty.
- You lose the moment no legal pair remains. With nothing hidden, that verdict is certain.
What's the Best Giza Strategy?
- Read the whole board before your first move. Nothing is hidden, so unlike most pyramid games you can genuinely plan. Find where each of the four kings sits, and work out which triangle cards are buried behind them.
- The reserve piles are your flexibility. Eight tops available at once is a wide choice, and a card you leave on a reserve top stays there. Spend the triangle first where you can, and save reserve tops for the pairs only they can make.
- Count the partners of each value. Four of every value means four possible partners. If you spend all four queens on triangle aces, a reserve ace lower down has nothing left.
- Do not bury a needed card. A reserve pile is dug from the top, so the card you need in the middle of a pile only becomes available when the ones above it go. Plan the order.
- Take kings deliberately, not automatically. A king costs nothing, but a king on a reserve top is also protecting nothing — while a king in the triangle is blocking two cards. Clear the triangle kings first.
A Short History
Giza belongs to the small group of pyramid games that dispense with the stock entirely, and it is much the better for it. The classic game hides twenty-four cards behind a stock you may only see in a fixed order, which makes it largely a matter of luck; Giza deals all twenty-four face up as eight small piles instead, and the game becomes a planning puzzle. The open-source PySolFC collection, whose rules this version follows, tags it as an open game and rates it balanced — the only rating of that kind in the pyramid family apart from its own variant Pyramid Dozen. The design has a pleasing arithmetic to it: eight piles of three is twenty-four, and twenty-four plus a twenty-eight card triangle is fifty-two exactly, with nothing left over. That completeness is also what lets this implementation be certain about a lost game — with no hidden card and no way for a card to enter play except by a removal, a board with no legal pair is genuinely finished, and the game says so rather than leaving you to hunt.
About This Version
This Giza 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.
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