Play Giza Solitaire Online for Free (No Signup Required)
See all 52 cards from the first move: an open pyramid up top, eight three-card fans below, and nothing left to chance.
Giza Solitaire is Pyramid with every card on the table. The variation was devised by the American solitaire researcher Michael Keller, who wanted a version of Pyramid in which nothing is left to chance: the whole deck is dealt face-up, so there is no stock to flip through and no waste pile to watch. It borrows its name from the Giza plateau in Egypt, home of the most famous pyramids of all.
The familiar 28-card pyramid sits at the top of the screen, and the 24 cards that ordinary Pyramid keeps hidden in its stock are spread instead into eight open columns of three. Play proceeds as in Pyramid: remove any two available cards whose ranks add up to thirteen, while Kings count as thirteen on their own and are discarded singly. You win the moment the pyramid has been dismantled — the columns do not have to be emptied.
Because every card is visible from the very first move, Giza is a game of pure planning: there are no lucky flips, and every defeat can be traced back to a pairing that should have been made differently. The game is challenging. It is played with a single deck, and your odds of victory are determined almost entirely by skill.
It plays much like Pyramid Solitaire and Pyramid Dozen Solitaire, minus the guesswork.
The original Solitaire is still the simplest way to spend an afternoon with cards, if Giza's all-at-once layout isn't your speed.
If you run into anything odd or have an idea that would make the game better, please contact me.
Enjoy playing!
How to play Giza Solitaire
Layout:
1 pyramid: 28 cards dealt into seven overlapping rows, all face-up. Remove pairs of uncovered cards that add up to thirteen; the game is won when the pyramid is empty.
8 tableau piles: Three face-up cards each. No building is permitted — the top card of each pile is simply available for pairing. Empty spaces may not be filled.
Foundation: Kept off the table. Every matched pair, and every lone King, is moved here automatically and leaves the game for good.
Foundation:
There is one foundation pile, and it stays hidden from view.
Removed cards are sent to it automatically: you never place cards on the foundation yourself, and no card can ever be brought back into play.
Pyramid:
There are twenty-eight cards in the pyramid. The first card is dealt, then two overlapping cards in a second row, three in the third, and so on down to seven cards in the seventh row. Every card is dealt face-up.
On the pyramid, no construction is authorized.
Cards on the pyramid that are not overlapped by another card are playable. Two uncovered pyramid cards may be paired with each other, or a pyramid card may be paired with the top card of a tableau pile, whenever the two ranks total thirteen: Ace and Queen, Two and Jack, Three and Ten, Four and Nine, Five and Eight, or Six and Seven. A King is removed on its own.
The pyramid's empty slots may not be filled.
Tableau:
Eight tableau piles of three cards each, all dealt face-up.
On the tableau, no construction is authorized.
Cards on the tableau that are not covered by another card are playable and may be paired with any other available card — including the top card of another tableau pile. Clearing the columns is never required for victory, but it is often the only way to dig the pyramid free.
The tableau's empty spaces may not be filled.
