Today was one of those days that flow by and it’s dinner time before you know it. I couldn’t remember what new thing I’d planned for today, but I was hoping it would be a nice and easy one. Luckily for me, I’d planned to play a solo card game, specifically pyramid solitaire.
I’m sure nearly everyone reading this will be familiar with a type of solitaire, most likely Klondike – the type that you play on the computer. I’ve spent many hours playing “just one more” game of Klondike on the computer through my life, and I know I’ve tried the more complicated Spider solitaire on there too. What I didn’t know was that in total there are five main types of solitaire: Klondike, Spider, TriPeaks, Freecell, and Pyramid. I could have easily found a game of pyramid solitaire online, but I like playing card games and board games in their physical form as much as possible. It reminds me of rainy childhood holidays in caravans, or grandparents trying to entertain me and my sister – it’s fun, tactile, and a much slower experience.
I found a tutorial on Bar Games 101 and got to work. In Pyramid solitaire you lay out a seven card high pyramid – a total of 28 cards, placing the remaining cards in a pile at one side. The aim is to get two cards to add up to 13, only using the cards that aren’t covered. This means the ones on the bottom row at first, before one by one demolishing the pyramid. If you can’t get to 13 with two cards, you can take a card from the ‘stock’ pile and use that, the game being over when you have run through all the cards.
I played 3 or 4 different games of this and I really enjoyed it. I didn’t win every game, but I liked that you had to try and use logic and strategy to think ahead to try and uncover as many cards as possible.
I can see myself playing this on a rainy Sunday, listening to music, or just on those odd occasions when it’s fun to play a physical game on your own.
New Day, New Thing 