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Gamehelppyramidpoker
Components and Setup
54 blocks comprising a full set of playing cards plus two jokers. Jokers are not wild, but instead give a player a special action during the Building your Hands phase. Shuffle all 54 blocks together face down into the general supply; each player then takes 15 blocks to put in their personal supply face down without looking at them.
Place the Pyramid foundation board between the two players.
Building the Pyramid
Players take turns choosing one block from their personal supply and placing it on the pyramid. Blocks must either be placed directly on the foundation board or centered on a pair of blocks already in place. You should place the block so that only you can see the face of it. Continue alternating placement of blocks until all 30 blocks have been set into the pyramid structure.
Building your Hands
Players now take turns removing blocks from the pyramid to form poker hands. Take any block with no blocks on top of it and look at the face. If you have chosen a Joker block, discard that block and turn over three tiles from the general supply; choose one of these blocks to keep and discard the other two. Now choose one of your three Hands for that block; Hands are limited to 5 blocks each.
Scoring
Basic Scoring
Compare each players Hands, one at a time, according to the poker Hand Rankings below. Higher rank wins the Hand. Winning two out of three Hands wins the game.
| Poker Hand | Example | Score (for Advanced games) |
|---|---|---|
| Royal Flush | 10♠ J♠ Q♠ K♠ A♠ | 5 Points |
| 4 of a Kind | Q♥ Q♦ Q♣ Q♠ 3♣ | 3 Points |
| Full House | Q♥ Q♦ Q♣ 2♦ 2♠ | 2 Points |
| Flush | Q♠ 7♠ 4♠ 9♠ K♠ | 1 Point |
| Straight | 4♠ 5♦ 6♣ 7♥ 8♦ | 1 Point |
| 3 of a Kind | 4♦ Q♦ Q♣ Q♥ 7♦ | 0 Points |
| 2 Pair | 4♦ 4♣ Q♣ Q♥ 7♦ | 0 Points |
| Pair | 4♦ 9♣ Q♣ Q♥ 7♦ | 0 Points |
| No Pair (Highest Card wins) |
4♦ 9♣ Q♣ K♥ 7♦ | -1 Points |
Advanced Scoring
Certain hand rankings provide points, according to the chart below. Calculate individual Hand scores as well as comparative wins and keep track of cumulative points.
| Each Hand | As scored above |
| Win 2 hands | 3 Points |
| Win all 3 hands | 4 Points |
| Every hand lower than one Pair | -1 Point |
Play to 7 points for a short game or 11 points for a longer game.