Play Pyramid Dozen — Pair to Twelve, and the Queen Only With the King

Pyramid Dozen takes Giza's open board and moves the target down by one, and that small change reshapes the court cards completely. Twenty-four cards are dealt face up as six reserve piles of four, and the other twenty-eight as a seven-row triangle. There is no stock and no waste. Two available cards leave together when their values add up to twelve — ace with jack, two with ten, three with nine, and so on, with two sixes pairing with each other — or when they are a queen and a king, which add to twenty-five. Nothing is ever removed alone, not even a king. Free in your browser, no sign-up, and it works offline once the page has loaded.

How Do You Play Pyramid Dozen?

Goal: Play Pyramid Dozen free online. An open pyramid game: pair cards adding to twelve, match the queen with the king, and clear the whole pack with no stock.

Setup

• Board: 28 cards face-up in a seven-row triangle, each card covering two below it.
• Reserves: six piles of four 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 twelve: A+J, 2+10, 3+9, 4+8, 5+7 and 6+6.
• Two sixes pair with each other, which is easy to overlook.
• A queen and a king also pair — they total twenty-five, the game's second sum.
• The queen and the king can pair with nothing else. There are four of each, so exactly four such pairs.
• Nothing is removed alone. The king has no special power here.
• A triangle card is available only when both cards covering it have gone; a reserve card only when it is the last of its pile.
• You win when all 52 cards have been removed. You lose the moment no legal pair remains.

What's the Best Pyramid Dozen Strategy?

• Guard your queens and kings. They have exactly one partner rank each and there are only four pairs of them in the deck. A queen buried in the middle of a reserve pile under three cards is the single most dangerous thing on the board — plan its rescue early.
• Aces are jack fodder and nothing else. With the target at twelve, an ace pairs only with a jack. Four aces, four jacks: spend them together and do not waste one.
• Remember the sixes. Six plus six is twelve, so a pair of sixes clears. It is the only same-rank pair in the game and the easiest legal move to miss.
• Deeper piles mean fewer choices. Six piles of four gives you six reserve tops where Giza gives eight, so the board is tighter and the order you dig them matters more. Look at what is under each top before you take it.
• Read everything before you start. This is an open game with no stock, so the whole deal is solvable or not from the first move. Time spent looking is never wasted, and undo costs you nothing.

A Short History

Pyramid Dozen is Giza's variant and, on paper, a trivial change: the target sum drops from thirteen to twelve. What that does to the court cards is anything but trivial. At thirteen, the ace meets the queen, the two meets the jack, and the king is worth the target on its own — every rank has a natural partner and the king is a free removal. At twelve, the jack pairs with the ace, but the queen can no longer reach the target with anything at all, and neither can the king. So the source gives them a second sum of their own — twenty-five, which only a queen and a king can make — and takes away the king's solo removal entirely, in two places at once: the click shortcut is overridden to do nothing, and the discard is rebuilt to refuse a single card. The result is a game with a hard constraint at the top of the deck: eight court cards that can only be cleared in four specific pairings. The open-source PySolFC collection tags it open and rates it balanced, and the six deeper reserve piles make it the tighter of the two open pyramid games.

About This Version

This Pyramid Dozen 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

• Giza — the same open board, pairing to thirteen
• Relaxed Pyramid — the classic triangle with a stock
• Cheops — the pyramid board with adjacent ranks
• Thirteens — pairs to thirteen with nothing blocking anything