Objective
Clear all cards from the three peaks by matching cards one rank higher or lower than the waste pile.
How To Play Tri-Peaks Solitaire
- Three Peaks: 18 cards arranged in 3 pyramid peaks
- Waste Pile: Starting card for matching
- Match Ranks: Click peak card that's +1 or -1 from waste
- Wraps Around: King-Ace and Ace-King work!
- Stock: Draw when no moves available
- Win: Clear all peak cards
Scoring
Points come from chains — cards played one after another without drawing.
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Each card you play scores points equal to how many cards you've played in the current chain: the 1st card is worth 1 point, the 2nd is worth 2, the 3rd 3, and so on, climbing by one each time.
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Clearing a peak — playing the single card at the top of one of the three peaks — adds a 15-point bonus on top of that card's chain points.
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Drawing from the stock breaks the chain. The streak resets, so the next card you play starts back at 1 point.
Strategy
- Build Streaks: Longer streaks = huge bonuses!
- Plan Ahead: Look for chains before clicking
- Avoid Stock: Drawing resets your streak
- Uncover Cards: Expose face-down cards when possible
- Clear Peaks: Focus on completing peaks
- Save Options: Don't take first match blindly
Odds
A solitaire here where you can't see everything — and that changes everything.
The shape of a deal
Twenty-eight cards form three peaks over a shared ten-card base, all face-up. Below them waits a stock of twenty-four cards — and those are face down. You flip one to start the waste, then play any exposed board card whose rank sits one above or one below the top of the waste, wrapping King↔Ace. Chain as far as you can, draw when you're stuck, and clear all 28 to win.
The key difference: in FreeCell or Convergence every card is on the table — the whole puzzle is visible. In Tri-Peaks the stock is hidden. You never know what the next card will be, so you can't solve the deal in your head. You can only play the odds.
Possible vs. achievable
Here's what makes Tri-Peaks quietly deep. If you could see the whole deck, almost every deal would be winnable. But playing for real — stock hidden, one card at a time — even a strong strategy wins far less. That gap is the entire game.
So a loss usually isn't a dead deal — it was winnable. It's that the card you needed was still face down when you had to commit. Tri-Peaks isn't a puzzle you solve; it's a risk you manage.
You almost always come close
This is the game's signature heartbreak. A skilled run clears, on average, 26.5 of 28 board cards, and knocks the top off at least one peak 97% of the time. You'll clear nearly the whole board again and again — and stall two cards short. Finishing all three peaks is the real prize, and it lands about 41% of the time.
| A typical draw-1 game | Result |
|---|---|
| Board cleared | 26.5 / 28 |
| Cleared at least one peak | 97% |
| Cleared all three (a win) | ~41% |
| Typical score | ~107 |
Chains are everything
Scoring rewards nerve: each card in an unbroken run is worth more than the last (1, then 2, then 3…), and clearing a peak's tip adds a 15-point bonus. A drawn card resets the chain to zero. So a single long, greedy sweep down the board can out-score a dozen timid one-card plays — and, not by accident, long chains are also how you clear the most board before spending a precious draw.
Draw Three is a different, brutal game
The one setting — draw 1 or draw 3 — is not a gentle difficulty bump. Because a draw of three stacks all three onto the waste, the first two are buried instantly and can never be played. Two of every three stock cards are simply gone. The result is stark:
| Setting | Winnable (perfect play) | Won (real play) |
|---|---|---|
| Draw 1 | ~96% | ~41% |
| Draw 3 | ~6% | under 1% |
At draw three, 94% of deals can't be won even by a player who sees the entire deck. It's less a difficulty level than a badge of honour — a near-impossible variant for when clearing the board the normal way stops being a challenge.
How to beat the odds
- Plan the longest chain, not the quickest play. Before you draw, look for the sweep that clears the most cards — it scores more and spends fewer draws.
- Open the peaks early. Cards buried under a peak are the ones most likely to strand you; work toward exposing them while you still have stock to spare.
- A draw is a resource, not a reflex. You get a limited number. Every card you can play now is a card you don't have to gamble a draw to reach.
- Make peace with 26 of 28. Coming up just short is the normal outcome, not a mistake — the wins are the ones where the hidden cards fell your way and you were ready for them.
All figures come from our own analysis of this game's engine. "Winnable (perfect play)" is from a solver that sees the full stock order and searches for any winning line (draw-1: ~96% winnable, ~0.5% provably not, the rest unresolved under a search budget). "Won (real play)" is a strong strategy that sees only the board and the current waste — never the stock — and always plays the chain that clears the most cards; over 5,000 deals per setting. A real person's rate lands near this, higher or lower with practice.
