TriPeaks rules

Setup & the deal

Twenty-eight cards are dealt into three overlapping peaks that share a common base. The three covered rows are dealt face down; only the ten open bottom-row cards start face up. The remaining 24 cards form the stock, face down, and the waste pile starts empty.

Each card in the top three rows is overlapped by two cards in the row below, and the peaks interlock: the outer cards of neighbouring peaks share coverers in the base rows. Suits and colors never matter — only ranks do. The deal is recorded, so Restart replays the identical layout.

How to play

A board card is exposed when both cards overlapping it are gone. An exposed card may be played onto the waste when its rank is one above or one below the current waste card — a 7 plays on a 6 or an 8. Ranks wrap around: an Ace plays on a King and a King on an Ace, so chains like Q-K-A-2 run straight through the corner.

• The free first move — the waste starts empty, so your opening play is any exposed card you like (or a stock flip). This is the only time a card is played without a rank check.
• Automatic flips — the moment both coverers of a face-down card are removed, it turns face up. Until then its identity is hidden information; there is no peeking.
• The stock — when nothing plays, click the stock to turn its next card onto the waste. There are 24 flips and no recycling: once the stock is empty, it is empty for good.
• Streaks — every board card played extends your current streak by one; drawing from the stock resets it to zero. Your best streak of the game is tracked. Streaks are pure bragging rights — they do not change legality or the win condition.

A sample chain: the waste shows a 6. You play a 7 from the base, then an 8 that the 7 uncovered, then a 9, then reverse direction — the 9 takes a 10 or an 8, and if a King is exposed the chain can later run Q-K-A-2 straight through the corner. Eight or nine board cards off a single stock flip is what a well-read layout looks like.

Cards are played by clicking (or tapping) them; the game highlights nothing you cannot legally play, and the Hint button prefers plays higher up the board, since those are what unlock the peaks.

Winning & losing

You win the instant the 28th board card leaves the table — leftover stock cards are irrelevant. Clearing the board on the very first waste chain, without ever drawing, is the game’s perfect run.

You lose when no exposed card is adjacent to the waste card and the stock is empty. Because there is no recycling, every stock flip is a resource: 24 draws plus your plays must be enough to dismantle all three peaks. TriPeaks is generous by solitaire standards — most deals are winnable — but wasted flips and broken chains lose winnable games.

The arithmetic makes the stakes concrete: 28 board cards must ride on chains started by at most 24 stock flips plus the free opener. On average each waste card only needs to carry a little over one board play — but hidden cards mean some flips inevitably land on nothing, so the real game is banking long chains early to afford dead flips later.

Edge cases & fine print

• Wraparound is symmetric and unlimited. A-K-A-K is a legal (if silly) chain; the loop has no direction and no limit.
• Only adjacency matters. Suits, colors and whether the card came from a peak or the base are all irrelevant — rank distance of one (or twelve, across the corner) is the entire rule.
• Hidden cards are genuinely hidden. The 18 covered cards are dealt face down and flip only when uncovered — decisions early in the game are made with incomplete information, exactly as on cardgames.io.
• Flips are immediate and free. Uncovering a card flips it in the same move; a single play can flip two cards at once when it was the last coverer of both neighbours.
• The peaks interlock. Base cards between two peaks cover cards belonging to both, so a play under one peak can open progress under its neighbour.
• The waste never re-empties. Played and drawn cards pile onto the waste for the whole game; only the opening move enjoys an empty waste.
• Drawing is always legal while stock remains — even with board plays available. It is almost always a mistake, since it resets your streak and burns a flip a chain could have earned, but the rules do not stop you.
• Undo, hints and auto-save are available; undo also restores your streak state. Restart replays the same deal — including which cards are hidden where — and New game reshuffles.
• Deck conservation is exact: 28 board cards plus 24 stock cards account for all 52; nothing is redealt and nothing enters the game twice.

Variants

We play the cardgames.io ruleset: covered cards face down, an empty starting waste with a free first move, Ace-King wraparound, and a 24-card stock with no recycling. Common variations elsewhere:

• Open TriPeaks — all 28 cards dealt face up, turning the game into a pure planning puzzle with a much higher win rate.
• No-wraparound versions — Ace and King are dead ends, which kills long chains and makes deals noticeably harder.
• Scored versions — casino-style implementations award escalating points per streak card and bonuses per cleared peak; the movement rules underneath are the same.
• Waste recycling — a few apps allow flipping the waste back into the stock; classic TriPeaks does not, and neither do we.

If you enjoy the up-or-down mechanic but want it entirely in the open, Golf is the same move set on seven flat, fully visible columns — the natural next game after TriPeaks.

Frequently asked questions

Related rulebooks

• Golf rules — clear the course one rank at a time
• Pyramid rules — pair cards to 13 and clear the pyramid
• Solitaire rules — the classic klondike patience game
• Clock rules — beat the fourth king — 1-in-13 fate