Tri Peaks (game)

Tri Peaks is a patience, or solitaire, card game played with a single standard deck, created by Robert Hogue in 1989 and later popularized worldwide through its inclusion in the Microsoft Solitaire Collection software. A game begins with eighteen cards dealt face down into three overlapping pyramid shaped peaks, with ten further cards dealt face up in a row beneath them and the remaining cards forming a stock pile to one side. The objective is to clear all three peaks by moving exposed cards from their tops onto a single discard pile, where each card played must be exactly one rank higher or one rank lower than the current top card of the discard pile, regardless of suit; when no card can be played, the next card is turned up from the stock to refresh the discard pile. The game is won once every card from all three peaks has been removed, whether or not the stock has been exhausted, and is lost only if the stock runs out while a playable sequence can no longer be found. Statistical analysis of randomly dealt games has found that over ninety percent of Tri Peaks deals are theoretically solvable, reflecting a game design that rewards attentive play over sheer luck once a scoring system is added.