Thirteen

written by Rosanna Yuen

Setup

Type of Deck Standard Deck
Stock Top left pile. The rest of the deck is placed here after dealing the Tableau. Cards are turned over one at a time to Waste. No redeals.
Waste To be taken from Stock. Top card and bottom card available for play.
Tableau Deal face down seven overlapping rows starting with one card on the first row, increasing by one per row and staggering the piles as to achieve a pyramid. Flip bottom row.

Goal

Remove all cards.

Rules

All exposed cards in the pyramid are available for play. Kings can be removed singly. All other cards can be removed in pairs that add up to thirteen with Aces equal to 1, Jacks equal to 11, and Queens equal to 12.

Cards can be flipped singly from the Stock to the Waste. Top and bottom cards are available for play either by themselves or with the available cards in the pyramid. There is no redeal.

Options

None

Scoring

Each card removed scores one point.

Maximum possible score: 52

Strategy

Every pyramid needs a strong foundation. Get rid of the lower cards first, with an eye out to try to expose as many cards as possible.