These rules describe TriPeaks as implemented in the app: uncovered peak cards one rank above or below the waste top are played onto it, with a draw-one stock and a single pass. The published sources disagree on several points — the choices made here (and why) are called out below.
Clear all 28 peak cards by playing them onto the waste, one rank up or down at a time. The stock and waste do not need to be emptied.
- Peaks: Twenty-eight cards in three overlapping peaks, with face-down rows of three, six, and nine over a face-up base row of ten. Each card except the base row is covered by two cards below it.
- Uncovered: A card with neither covering card remaining. Only uncovered cards can be played.
- Stock: The face-down draw pile (23 cards after the deal).
- Waste: The face-up pile every played and drawn card lands on — its top card is the match target.
- Chain: Consecutive discards without flipping the stock — each discard in a chain is worth one more point than the last.
Rank order runs Ace, 2 … 10, Jack, Queen, King, and wraps around: King and Ace are adjacent, as are Ace and 2. Suits never matter.
- Use a standard 52-card deck (no jokers).
- Peaks: Deal 28 cards into the three-peak layout, with three face-down rows (three peak cards, then six, then nine) under the face-up ten-card base row that the peaks share.
- Waste: Flip one card face up to start the waste.
- Stock: The remaining 23 cards, face down.
- Play any uncovered card that is one rank above or below the top waste card, regardless of suit. It becomes the new match target.
- Ranks wrap: a King plays on an Ace, and an Ace plays on a King or a Two.
- A face-down card flips face up the moment both cards covering it are removed.
- Tap the stock to flip one card onto the waste. You get a single pass through the stock — no recycles.
- Cards never leave the waste, and there is no building.
- The n-th consecutive discard in a chain: +n (1, 2, 3, …).
- Flipping a stock card: −5, and the chain resets.
- Clearing a peak: +15 for each of the first two. The third — which always clears the board — pays +30 instead.
- On a win, a time bonus is added: it starts at 900 and drops by one point per second of play.
- The score never drops below zero.
You win the moment the last peak card is played, regardless of the stock and waste.
Where the linked sources disagree, this implementation uses:
- Wrapping allowed (cardgames.io/semicolon.com and most digital implementations, including the original 1989 game), not the no-wrap variant some sites reserve for their "hard" mode.
- Single pass through the stock with no recycles (universal across sources — the pass limit is the game).
- Chain scoring with peak bonuses (the conventional scheme from the original game: escalating discards, −5 flips, 15/15/30 peak bonuses), not plain per-card scoring.