Play Tut's Tomb Solitaire Online for Free (King Tut Solitaire)
Tut's Tomb Solitaire, also widely known as King Tut Solitaire, takes the classic Pyramid pairing mechanic and gives you something the original almost never offered: a realistic path to victory. Unlimited redeals through the waste pile mean the game rewards patient, methodical play rather than punishing you for bad luck on the initial deal. Match cards summing to 13, remove Kings alone, and cycle through the stock as many times as you need. Play free, no download required.
What is Tut's Tomb Solitaire?
Tut's Tomb Solitaire is a pairing patience game built on the Pyramid Solitaire framework. Twenty-eight cards are laid out in a seven-row triangle (one card at the apex, seven at the base), and the remaining 24 cards form a stock pile. You remove cards in pairs that sum to 13, or remove Kings singly. A card is only playable once both of the cards directly below it in the pyramid have been removed, the same strict exposure rule as standard Pyramid. The single transformative difference is the waste pile cycling rule: there is no redeal limit. Every time you exhaust the stock, you can flip the waste pile and draw again, as many times as the game requires.
This unlimited cycling converts Tut's Tomb from a near-impossible game into one with a win rate around 55%, making it one of the most accessible members of the Pyramid family while still demanding attention to exposure order and stock management.
Tut's Tomb Solitaire history
The name Tut's Tomb is a playful nod to Tutankhamun, the Egyptian pharaoh whose tomb was famously discovered by Howard Carter in 1922. The triangular pyramid layout of the cards evokes the Great Pyramids of Giza, and the Egyptian theming that has always accompanied Pyramid Solitaire made "Tut's Tomb" a natural marketing label for digital publishers. The underlying rule of unlimited waste cycling was known in tabletop card-game circles as a common house rule that made Pyramid more winnable for casual players. Digital platforms formalized it under the King Tut and Tut's Tomb branding beginning in the early 2000s, and the name has stuck across mobile apps, browser games, and solitaire suites ever since. Some publishers use "King Tut" and "Tut's Tomb" interchangeably for the same game.
How to Play Tut's Tomb Solitaire
The core loop of Tut's Tomb is identical to standard Pyramid except that the stock never runs out for good. Here are the steps:
- Shuffle a 52-card deck and deal 28 cards into a seven-row pyramid. Row 7 (the base, seven cards) is fully exposed at the start. All other rows are blocked by the cards in the row below them.
- Place the remaining 24 cards face-down as the stock.
- A pyramid card is exposed only when both cards directly overlapping it have been removed.
- Tap two exposed cards (any combination of pyramid cards and the waste top) that sum to 13 to discard them. Valid pairs: A+Q, 2+J, 3+10, 4+9, 5+8, 6+7.
- Tap a King alone to remove it, since Kings carry a value of 13.
- Tap the stock to draw one card to the waste. The waste top is always available.
- When the stock is empty, tap the waste pile to flip it back into a new stock. Repeat this as many times as needed; there is no redeal limit.
- Win by clearing all 28 pyramid cards. Stock and waste cards remaining at that point do not matter.
Strategies to win Tut's Tomb Solitaire
Unlimited redeals mean that the key strategic challenge shifts from "can I win?" to "can I avoid infinite loops?" A game becomes unwinnable when a circular dependency locks the same set of cards in an endless cycle without progress.
- Count your cards to detect loops. If you cycle through the stock twice without removing a single pyramid card, you are likely in a deadlock. Examine every exposed pyramid card and every waste top position carefully before concluding the game is stuck.
- Prefer pyramid-to-pyramid pairs over waste-to-pyramid pairs. Every pyramid-only pair costs zero stock cards. Saving stock draws for moments when no pyramid pair exists maximises the useful information you get from each waste card.
- Clear Kings from blocking positions first. A King sitting directly below an important row is a dead weight. Remove it immediately to unlock two cards above it, since Kings never need a partner.
- Track which complements remain in the pyramid vs. the stock. Because you can cycle through the stock repeatedly, what matters most is not when a complement appears in the waste but whether it can ever be simultaneously exposed with its partner.
- Plan from the apex down. Identify the apex card rank before your first move. All 27 cards beneath it must be cleared for the game to be winnable. If the apex's complement is also buried deep in the pyramid rather than in the stock, plan its extraction path early.
Tut's Tomb Solitaire rules and objective
The objective is to remove all 28 pyramid cards by pairing them (or waste-top cards) into sums of 13, or by removing lone Kings. Both cards in a pair must be exposed at the time of removal. A pyramid card is exposed only when both cards physically overlapping it from the row below have been discarded. The waste top is always considered exposed. The stock is drawn one card at a time. When exhausted, the waste flips into a fresh stock with no limit on how many times this recycling occurs.
Game setup
Take a standard 52-card deck and deal it into a seven-row triangle: one card to row 1, two to row 2, continuing through seven cards to row 7. Each card in rows 1 through 6 overlaps two cards in the row directly below it, creating the classic pyramid silhouette. The remaining 24 cards go face-down into the stock. No foundation piles are used; all removed pairs simply leave the play area.
Tut's Tomb Solitaire variants and similar games
Tut's Tomb occupies the high-win-rate end of the Pyramid family. The table below maps the full landscape so you can choose the difficulty that suits you:
| Variant | Key difference from Tut's Tomb | Win rate |
|---|---|---|
| Standard Pyramid | No redeals at all | ~5 to 8% |
| Relaxed Pyramid | Relaxed exposure (one blocker), 1 redeal | ~28% |
| Tut's Tomb (this game) | Unlimited redeals, strict exposure | ~55% |
| Apophis | Three waste piles cycling instead of one | ~30% |
| Giza | No stock; extra 8-column grid instead | ~20% |
How difficult is Tut's Tomb Solitaire?
Tut's Tomb is considered beginner-friendly within the Pyramid family. The unlimited cycling eliminates the harsh luck component that makes standard Pyramid so frustrating: if you miss a pairing opportunity on one pass through the stock, the card comes back on the next cycle. The challenge that remains is purely positional, specifically whether the pyramid exposure structure creates an unsolvable circular dependency where card A is blocked by card B and card B is blocked by a card that can only be matched with card A's complement, which is itself blocked. These circular locks are rarer than most players expect, which is why the win rate is as high as it is.
What is Tut's Tomb Solitaire's win percentage?
Tut's Tomb Solitaire has a win rate of approximately 55% under optimal play. This makes it one of the most winnable Pyramid variants and places it in a comparable range to standard Klondike Turn One (around 45 to 80% depending on the study). The 55% figure assumes that you cycle through the stock multiple times as needed and correctly sequence pyramid removal to avoid exposure deadlocks. Roughly 45% of deals are unwinnable even with unlimited redeals because of structural circular dependencies in the pyramid layout.
What is the difference between Tut's Tomb Solitaire and standard Pyramid Solitaire?
Both games use an identical 28-card pyramid layout, a 24-card stock, and the same pairing rule (cards summing to 13, Kings alone). The exposure rule is also identical: a card requires both of its lower blockers removed before it becomes playable. The single difference is the stock recycling policy. In standard Pyramid Solitaire, when the stock runs out the game ends; there are no redeals. In Tut's Tomb, you can flip the waste back into the stock any number of times, returning every unmatched stock card to play.
That one rule change raises the win rate from 5 to 8% all the way to roughly 55%. Standard Pyramid is one of the hardest common solitaire games; Tut's Tomb is a genuinely approachable member of the same family. Players who find standard Pyramid demoralizing often discover that Tut's Tomb provides the right balance of strategic depth without the punishing loss rate.
Tut's Tomb Solitaire FAQ
What does unlimited redeals mean in Tut's Tomb Solitaire?
Unlimited redeals means that whenever the stock pile is completely empty, you can tap the waste pile to flip all of the discarded cards back into a fresh stock. There is no limit to how many times you do this in a single game. The waste cards return in reverse discard order, so planning which cards land where in the waste is a real part of advanced strategy. A game only ends when you either clear the pyramid (win) or reach a state where cycling the stock produces zero progress on any cycle (loss).
How many times can you redeal in King Tut Solitaire?
There is no numeric cap on redeals in King Tut Solitaire. You can flip the waste into the stock and draw through it as many times as the game requires. In practice, most winnable games resolve within two to four passes through the stock. If you find yourself on the sixth or seventh cycle without making progress, you are most likely in an unsolvable circular dependency and the game cannot be completed regardless of further cycling.
Does Tut's Tomb Solitaire have a time limit or a move limit?
No. Tut's Tomb does not impose a time limit or a cap on the number of moves or stock draws you can make. The game is purely objective-based: clear the pyramid and you win, regardless of how long it takes or how many times you cycle through the stock. Some digital implementations track elapsed time for personal-best purposes, but time never affects whether you win or lose.
What is the difference between King Tut Solitaire and Tut's Tomb Solitaire?
King Tut Solitaire and Tut's Tomb Solitaire are two names for the same game. Both refer to the Pyramid Solitaire variant that allows unlimited waste-pile cycling. The "King Tut" label emphasizes the Egyptian pharaoh branding, while "Tut's Tomb" emphasizes the pyramid-as-burial-chamber theme. Different publishers chose different names, and both have stuck in the solitaire community. If you encounter either name in an app store or on a website, you should expect the same rules: standard Pyramid layout, strict two-blocker exposure, unlimited redeals.
How does cycling the waste pile affect strategy in Tut's Tomb?
Because cards return in reverse discard order, you can engineer the waste pile sequence by choosing when to draw and when to make pyramid-only pairs. If you draw card A, then card B, then remove a pyramid pair without drawing, then draw card C, the redeal stock will read C, B, A from top to bottom. This ordering matters when card A's complement is only accessible in the pyramid after a specific sequence of removals. Advanced players think one or two cycles ahead, arranging the waste so that high-priority stock cards surface at the right moment in the next cycle.