Card game
Five tableau columns hold the cards dealt from a shuffled 52-card deck. Remove pairs whose ranks sum to 13 (Queen + Ace, Jack + 2, 10 + 3, 9 + 4, 8 + 5, 7 + 6) or remove a lone King. When you run out of plays, deal a fresh row of five. The last two cards in hand become face-up grace cards at the side — available for pairing just like the tableau tops. Clear every card to win.
Solitaire.City includes classic builders, pairing games, and larger two-deck patience variants, so you can jump between quick rounds and longer strategic layouts.
Baroness Solitaire is a compact pairing game in the same family as Pyramid. Like Pyramid, it removes pairs of cards totaling 13 (Jack = 11, Queen = 12, King = 13). Unlike Pyramid, there is no triangular layout of blocked cards — instead five columns sit side by side, and when their top cards are all played or cleared, a fresh row of up to five new cards is dealt from the stock. The game is simpler than Pyramid but shares its pairing logic.
The 52-card deck is dealt five cards face-up as the opening row. The remaining 47 cards form the stock. Available cards are: the top exposed card of each of the five columns, plus the top stock card if you choose to deal one.
Remove pairs of available cards totaling exactly 13. Kings (value 13) are removed alone. Queens pair with Aces; Jacks with Twos; Tens with Threes; and so on down to Sevens and Sixes. When all five columns are empty or pairing is impossible, deal one more card to each column from the stock. Win by clearing all 52 cards.
Pyramid uses a 28-card triangular layout where each card blocks two cards beneath it; access is the central challenge. Baroness uses a flat five-column layout where access is immediate — every column top is available — so the challenge is purely about pair selection and stock timing.
The stock deal mechanic also differs: Pyramid recycles a linear stock through a waste pile. Baroness deals new rows to columns, which means running out of stock ends the game more abruptly. Every wasted pairing opportunity in Baroness potentially costs a stock row that might have produced a better combination.
Unlike Pyramid, where upper-row priority is the guiding principle, Baroness has no concept of blocked cards. The strategic question is always: which pair is best to remove now, considering what each card’s partner might enable after the next stock deal?
Kings are free removals — they cost nothing and clear a column position. Remove Kings immediately when available. For other pairs, consider whether both cards of the pair have multiple possible partners elsewhere in the layout, or whether one of them is a rare match that you should preserve for a future combination.