TriPeaks Solitaire

How to play TriPeaks solitaire

The tableau is 28 cards in four overlapping rows: three one-card summits, then rows of six and nine face down, then a face-up row of ten across the bottom. A covered card turns face up the moment both cards overlapping it are gone, so the board opens from the bottom up. The other 24 cards form the stock: one starts the waste, and the remaining 23 are drawn one at a time. Tap any exposed card exactly one rank above or below the waste top to move it onto the waste, where it immediately becomes the new target — long chains off a single draw are the heart of the game. When nothing plays, draw. There are no redeals: 23 draws is the whole budget, and you win the instant all three peaks are gone.

The wrap rule: Aces and Kings connect

In TriPeaks the ranks form a circle: a King plays on an Ace and an Ace plays on a King, so a run like Queen–King–Ace–Two is perfectly legal. That one rule is why the game feels so generous — every rank has two live neighbours, so no card is ever a dead end. It is also the sharpest contrast with our Golf solitaire, which uses the strict rule: there, nothing plays on a King and the game is bluntly harder. If you arrive from Golf, retrain your eye — the K–A seam is where TriPeaks chains keep going.

Can every TriPeaks game be won?

Nearly — and we measured it rather than guessed. Our exact solver enumerated every reachable position of 1,000 randomly dealt games under these rules (wrap on, no redeals): 96.6% were provably clearable, and every verdict was exact — no deal was too big to solve out. Because random deals are already this winnable, New Game here deals genuinely at random; there is no curated pool to lean on. Roughly one deal in thirty is provably dead, usually because the buried peak cards never find a neighbour in the stock — when that happens, the deadlock notice is honest, not a nudge. The hint button consults the same exact search of your deal and points along the best line it can prove.

Chains, flips, and the three peaks

Skilled TriPeaks is about spending draws slowly. Every card you clear by chaining costs nothing; every draw burns one of 23. The currency that wins games is the flip — a play that removes the last cover from a face-down card and turns it up. Two plays may look equal on rank, but the one that flips a card hands you new options and the one that flips nothing just shortens the board. The three peaks fall separately, so watch for the trap of felling one peak while the others stay sealed: clearing evenly keeps more of the board live per draw. The endgame is arithmetic — with a handful of tableau cards left, check whether the remaining stock can still reach their ranks before you spend your last draws.

TriPeaks strategy tips

Habits that separate a cleared board from a stalled one:

1. Ride every chain to its end before drawing — a draw that interrupts a live chain usually wastes both the draw and the chain.
2. When two plays are legal, take the one that flips a face-down card; exposure is the only resource that grows.
3. Use the wrap deliberately: count Q–K–A–2 as one continuous ladder when you plan a chain, not as two separate ends.
4. Clear toward the peak that is still sealed — an early summit is worth less than three half-open slopes.
5. Late in the game, count the stock: if a stranded card’s neighbours cannot appear in the draws you have left, stop spending on that peak.

TriPeaks solitaire FAQ