TriPeaks

Chain first, click later

The scoring in TriPeaks lives and dies by the combo. Every card you peel off while a run keeps going is worth more than the last, so the players who rack up big numbers aren't the fastest clickers. They're the ones who trace the whole sequence before touching a single card. On a fresh deal it's worth ten quiet seconds to find the longest chain on the board, because the first combo sets the tone for the whole layout. A waste pile reading 7 lets you take a 6 or an 8; that 8 might sit near a 9, the 9 near a 10, and suddenly you've walked halfway up a peak on one unbroken combo.

The wraparound is the part beginners forget. An Ace sits next to both the King and the 2, so a run can bend around the top of the order, Queen, King, Ace, 2, 3, and keep flowing where you'd swear it should stop. The loop works in both directions, so a 2 can step down to an Ace and onward to a King. Hold that in mind and dead ends turn into detours.

Where to spend your stock

You only get so many draws from the stock, and each one snaps your combo back to zero. Treat a draw as a reset you'd rather not use. Before you tap the stock, scan every uncovered card for a legal move you missed. There's often one hiding on the far peak.

• Go after the cards that cover the most. The three peak tips each block two cards, so clearing them early loosens the whole board.
• When two legal cards are on offer, take the one that keeps a longer chain alive rather than the nearest.
• Hold a card back if grabbing it now would strand a run you could extend in a moment.
• Watch both directions. It's easy to fixate on climbing and miss that you could descend instead.
• Work all three peaks rather than tunnelling on one. A peak you ignore is a peak whose blockers never loosen.

Count what is left

There are exactly four cards of each rank in the deck, and a little counting turns close games. If three 6s are already gone, any plan that needs a fourth 6 is on thin ice, so route your chain another way while you still can. The same count tells you when to be brave: with all four 7s still unseen, a chain that pauses on an 8 has decent odds of continuing. Counting sounds like homework, but in practice it's just noticing which ranks the waste pile has already eaten. Late in a deal, count the stock like a wallet too: if two draws remain and two peaks still stand, only a long chain saves the board, so gamble accordingly.

Choosing between two legal cards is where deals are won. Suppose the waste shows a 7 and you can take an 8 high on the left peak or a 6 sitting alone on the bottom row. The 8 is pinning two covered cards; the 6 is pinning nothing. If the chain can only take one, take the 8, because every card you free is a future move, and bottom-row loners will still be there later. The tidy rule: when in doubt, take the card that uncovers more.

Where the game comes from

TriPeaks is young for a solitaire. Robert Hogue designed it in 1989, borrowing the one-up-or-one-down idea from Golf solitaire and stacking the cards into three overlapping pyramids, which is where the tension lives: peaks share cards, so freeing one card often chips away at its neighbour too. Hogue also ran the numbers on his own creation, and by his analysis roughly nine deals in ten can be cleared with perfect play, which means a stuck game usually traces back to a wasted draw rather than bad luck. The game spread worldwide through PC solitaire collections, Microsoft's among them, and became one of the most played card games anywhere. You will also see it called Three Peaks or Triple Peaks; same game, same tension. Clearing all three peaks earns the big bonus, and with odds that generous, the full clear is the goal worth chasing on every single deal.