Tri Peaks Solitaire is a fun and popular solitaire game that combines elements of Golf Solitaire and Pyramid Solitaire. It has an interesting scoring system, which can lead to much higher scores when you do NOT play all the moves you can.
There are 2 keys to getting a high score in Tri Peaks Solitaire:
- Clean each Peak.
- Form long sequences.
You get quite a few points for clearing a spike. You get 15 points for clearing the first spike, 15 points for clearing the second spike, and then 30 points for clearing the last spike. That’s a total of 60 points, which goes to show that it’s definitely worth getting rid of all the spikes, and unless you can form an incredibly long sequence, it’s always worth trying to remove the spikes.
The second key to doing well in Tri Peaks Solitaire is to build really long sequences, where you don’t deal a card from the talon.
The Tri Peaks scoring system will give you an additional point for each card you move in a sequence. So the first card you move gives you one point, the next card gives you two points, the next card you move gives you three points, the next card gives you four points, etc. The sequence ends as soon as he deals from the claw, and the sequence starts over at one point.
This system is interesting because it often makes sense not to move cards as soon as possible.
There are 2 ways to illustrate this.
What do you think would be the difference in score between a sequence of 12 and two sequences of 6? Most people know that the long string will outperform the shorter strings, but not many people realize by how much!
The long sequence of 12 gives us a score of 1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8+9+10+11+12, which is 78.
Surely the two 6-long sequences won’t be left behind? Well, we get 1+2+3+4+5+6 for the first sequence. And then we do 1+2+3+4+5+6 for the second sequence.
The total is only 42! Even though the same number of cards were removed, the difference in scores is 36 points!
Another way to illustrate this is to see what would happen if we were to extend a long sequence.
What if instead of 12 cards in sequence, we could somehow remove 14 cards in sequence? Well, that would give us 13+14 bonus points, which is 27 bonus points.
Adding two extra cards in the 12 card sequence almost resulted in as many points as two 6 card sequences!
As you can see, it really pays off to make a really long sequence. You need to make sure you form a sequence of at least 10 cards before you start getting a reasonable score.
Now, when Tri Peaks Solitaire starts, you usually find that you can form a reasonably long sequence. But it’s rarely more than 10 cards. Don’t use that sequence until you’ve studied the chart carefully!
Look at the cards on the bottom layer. Look for a lot of cards around the same range. See if you can see any long sequences. When you do, see what cards are covering that sequence, and then work to remove them. DO NOT remove cards that could make the sequence longer, even if you can play them in shorter sequences before the hand. You want to aim for a sequence, as long as you can humanly do so, to get really good scores in Tri Peaks Solitaire.
However, this must be balanced against the first key, which is discovering the spikes. You don’t want to wait too long to get that perfect sequence, as it can mean you won’t be able to discover the peaks.
Play a few games with the above in mind, and you’ll surely see your Tri Peaks scores rise in no time!
