What is Whole deck?
In the standard game here you win the moment the last pyramid card is removed, even with cards left in the stock or the waste. With the whole-deck goal that is only half the job: the game counts as won only when all 52 cards are on the discard pile.
The play itself does not change. You remove free cards in pairs that make 13, and Kings on their own, and the face-up stock card and the top waste card are free cards like any other. Once the pyramid is gone, you carry on pairing stock and waste cards with each other, turning the waste over while passes are left.
The stricter goal changes how you plan. A pair of two stock cards that would be a waste of values in the standard game may be exactly what you need, and every value has to come out even across the whole pack. Fewer deals can be won, so a full clear is rare.
Rule changes
| Rule | Standard Pyramid Solitaire | Whole deck |
|---|---|---|
| Goal | Standard Pyramid SolitaireClear the 28 cards of the pyramid. | Whole deckClear all 52 cards: the pyramid, the stock and the waste. |
| Cards left in the stock and waste | Standard Pyramid SolitaireDon't matter once the pyramid is cleared. | Whole deckMust all be paired off too. |
| Kings | Standard Pyramid SolitaireRemoved on their own, from the pyramid, the stock or the waste. | Whole deckThe same; a King left in the waste keeps the game from being won. |
| End of the game | Standard Pyramid SolitaireWhen no move is left, or as soon as no stock or waste card can pair with a free pyramid card. | Whole deckThe same while pyramid cards are left; once the pyramid is cleared, as soon as no card left is a King or can pair with another card left. |
| Passes through the stock | Standard Pyramid SolitaireThree. | Whole deckThree as well; one or two can be chosen in the setup. |
History
Pyramid's early writers did not agree on when the game is won. According to Michael Keller's Solitaire Laboratory, Dean Bryden's Fun With Cards (1927), possibly the game's first appearance, and Johnson and Pope's 30 Games of Solitaire (1928) asked only for the pyramid to be cleared, while Helen L. Coops's book of 1939 required all 52 cards to be discarded.
Albert H. Morehead and Geoffrey Mott-Smith, in The Complete Book of Solitaire and Patience Games (1949), estimated that discarding the whole pack in a single pass succeeds about once in fifty games, a figure Keller calls guesswork. Some modern rule books treat clearing every card as the standard game and call the pyramid-only goal Relaxed Pyramid.