How to play Pyramid well once you know the rules: the decisions that matter, and the habits that win.
Everything in Pyramid is thirteen: ace with queen, two with jack, three with ten, four with nine, five with eight, six with seven, and a king on its own. Once those pairs are automatic you can spend your attention on the part that matters, which is what each removal uncovers.
Remember that there are only four of each rank. If three queens are already gone, the fourth queen is the last partner for every ace still in the pyramid.
Before taking an obvious pair, check the cards above it. A seven lying on a six can never be paired with that six, so it needs one of the other sixes — and if you use those sixes elsewhere first, the pyramid is lost several moves before you notice.
When a card has two possible partners, pick the one that does not leave something higher up stranded. That one habit is most of the skill in the game.
A card higher up is freed only when both cards on it have gone, so prefer removals that uncover cards over removals that do not. Taking two neighbours in the bottom row frees the card above them; taking two cards from opposite ends frees nothing yet.
Work across the whole pyramid rather than clearing one side. The top card rests on everything below it, and a pyramid with one untouched corner is a pyramid that cannot be finished.
Only the top card of the waste is free, but when it is taken the card under it is free again. A card that had no partner when you turned it is not gone: take the card above it and it is back in play.
So before turning another card from the stock, make every useful pair with the waste that you can. Each card you turn buries the one before it a little deeper.
The table lets you go through the stock once, twice or three times. With three passes, a card you could not use comes round again, and there is time to find partners for what is buried. With one, every card you turn past is a card you will not see again.
Kings are free removals, so never hold one back. And when a deal has nothing left to take and no pass left to try, give it up and move on to the next: Pyramid is a quick game, and most deals are not winnable with one pass anyway.