Solitaire Games
Build long clearing runs across three connected peaks. Only exposed cards can move, and each play must be exactly one rank above or below the current waste top.
Clear the three peaks by playing exposed cards one rank higher or lower than the waste top.
Tri Peaks Solitaire was designed by Robert Hogue and introduced by Microsoft in 1994. It uses the same rank-adjacency removal mechanic as Golf Solitaire — play a card one rank above or below the current waste top — but applies it to a layout of three overlapping pyramids sharing a common base row of ten cards. The cross-peak structure means clearing cards from one pyramid can open access to the shared base row, which in turn unblocks the other peaks.
Three overlapping pyramids share a ten-card base row. Pyramid cards start face-down; a card becomes available when both cards overlapping it from the row above are removed. Base-row cards are always face-up and available. The remaining 24 cards form the stock.
An available card moves to the waste if its rank is exactly one above or below the current waste top. Suits are irrelevant. Most implementations allow Ace–King wraparound. When no available card fits, draw from the stock. Win by clearing all tableau cards before the stock is exhausted.
Golf uses a seven-column flat tableau and typically no wraparound. Tri Peaks uses three pyramids and usually allows Ace–King wraparound, making long chains more achievable. Pyramid asks you to pair cards totaling 13; Tri Peaks uses sequential rank adjacency.
The key strategic difference from Golf is the shared base row: in Golf, removing a column card affects only that column. In Tri Peaks, removing a base-row card can simultaneously open cards in two different peaks, making move evaluation two-dimensional.
The middle peak shares base cards with both side peaks — clearing middle-peak cards tends to unlock base cards accessible to all three peaks, giving you the widest rank diversity for continuing chains. Focusing too narrowly on one peak risks leaving the other two locked behind unhelpful base-row ranks.
Before drawing from stock, scan all three peaks and the base row. With three pyramids, it is easy to miss an available card in a far column. A missed removal followed by a stock draw consumes a limited resource unnecessarily.