How to play TriPeaks Solitaire

TriPeaks is a fast, flowing solitaire. Cards are dealt in three overlapping peaks (or one of many other shapes), with most of them face down. One card lies face up on the waste, and you clear the table by playing cards onto it that are exactly one rank higher or lower. A 7 can follow a 6 or an 8; a king can follow a queen or an ace. String enough plays together and the peaks come down.

Every play uncovers new cards, and the skill is in choosing which run to follow: the longest one you can see is not always the one that turns over the most new cards. Here you play it with 54 different layouts to choose from.

How to play on skill.games

When you open the game, the settings popup appears. Under LAYOUT you see a small picture of every layout: scroll the grid, tap the one you want (it gets a blue outline) and press PLAY. The layout you chose is remembered for next time.

• The layout fills the top of the screen. Cards that are still covered lie face down; a card turns face up as soon as nothing covers it any more.
• The stock and the waste sit in a row under the layout (on a phone held sideways, beside it). The stock is face down, and a small number on it shows how many cards are left. The waste shows the open card you play onto.
• Playing a card: tap a face-up card that is one rank above or below the open card. It flies onto the waste and becomes the new open card.
• Drawing: when nothing fits, or when you would rather change the open card, tap the stock to turn its next card onto the waste.
• Undo: the round button next to the waste takes back your last move. Undo is free and unlimited, all the way back to the deal.

A face-down card, or a face-up card that doesn't fit, shakes instead. The top line shows your score, the time and your moves. The menu button in the top-left corner pauses the game, starts a new deal or switches the sound on or off. The game is saved after every move, so if you close the page you can press CONTINUE and carry on with the same cards and the same undo history.

When you clear the layout, the cards bounce off the table and the results screen shows your score, time, moves and layout, plus your statistics: wins, losses, win rate and streaks.

Rules

The deal. A standard 52-card deck is shuffled. One card starts the waste, face up. The cards of the chosen layout are dealt into their places, face down where another card covers them and face up where nothing does. Every remaining card forms the stock, face down.

Free cards. A card in the layout is free once every card that overlaps it has been played. In the classic three peaks the bottom row starts free, and each card higher up turns over when both cards resting on it are gone.

Playing. A free card can be played onto the waste if its rank is exactly one higher or one lower than the waste's top card. Suits and colours don't matter. The ranks wrap around the corner: a king can go on an ace and an ace on a king, as well as K on Q, Q on J and so on.

The stock. Tapping the stock turns its top card face up onto the waste, where it becomes the card to play on. The stock is dealt only once: when it is empty there is no going back through it.

Winning. You win as soon as the layout is empty. Cards left in the stock do not matter.

No more moves. When the stock is empty and no face-up card fits the waste, the deal is over: the game tells you so. You can undo and try a different order, or start a new deal from the menu. A deal you leave unfinished counts as a loss in your statistics.

Scoring. Each card played from the layout scores 10 points; drawing from the stock scores nothing. The clock starts with your first move, and every 30 seconds on it costs 30 points (the score never goes below zero). Undoing a move takes its points back. When you win, a time bonus of 600,000 divided by your time in seconds is added, so a quick clear scores far more than a slow one.

Strategy tips

• Look for the longest run before you start. Before playing anything, trace how far you can go up and down through the face-up cards - 5, 6, 7, 6, 5 - and play the run that goes furthest.
• Prefer cards that uncover others. When two cards fit, play the one that frees a face-down card. New cards mean new choices.
• Clear the peaks, not just the bottom row. The cards at the top of each peak are covered the longest; work towards them steadily so you don't end with a peak nobody can reach.
• Don't rush to the stock. Every stock card you turn is one fewer chance later. Draw only when you have no play you want.
• Remember the wrap. Kings and aces connect, so a run like Q, K, A, 2 is perfectly legal.
• Count what has gone. If all four 9s are already on the waste, a waiting 10 can only be played on a jack.
• Undo is free - use it to explore. If a run leads nowhere, step back and follow the other branch.

Layouts

There are no difficulty levels: the layout is the variety. All 54 layouts from the original game are here, from the classic three peaks (Layout 1, the default, 28 cards) to walls, towers and bridges with anywhere from 15 to 30 cards. Fewer cards in the layout means a longer stock and more chances to keep a run going, so small layouts are gentler; layouts with many face-down cards and long chains of overlaps need more planning. Your statistics are kept for the game as a whole, across every layout. If you are new to TriPeaks, start with Layout 1 and then try the others in the grid.