Pair Out
A classic patience card game with a sliding twist. Remove touching pairs of the same rank from a 5x5 grid; every removal closes the gaps and pulls the later cards back, so the order you take pairs in decides what will touch next. Clear the whole deck.
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Controls
TapKeyboardSpace- Up to 25 cards are laid out in five rows of five. Tap a card, then tap a card of the same rank that touches it, side by side, above, below or diagonally, to remove both.
- After each removal the gaps close: every card after the pair slides back to fill the space in reading order (left to right, top to bottom), and new cards from the stock fill the end. Remove the whole deck to win.
- If no touching pairs are left you are stuck: use UNDO or RESTART. HINT shows a pair that still leads to a full clear.
- Clear without any undo or hint for three stars; up to three helps gives two stars. Early deals use fewer ranks; later deals use the full deck of 52.
About the game
Pair Out is a tidy take on one of the oldest solitaire games, the kind once played on a kitchen table with a single deck. Twenty-five cards sit in a five by five square, and any two cards of the same rank that touch can be lifted out together, even if they only meet at a corner. It sounds like a simple matching game until you notice what happens next: the hole they leave does not stay empty. Every card after the pair slides back along the rows to close the gap, and fresh cards from the stock join at the end.
That slide is the whole puzzle. Taking a pair near the top of the grid moves almost every card, breaking pairs you had planned and making new ones by accident. Taking a pair near the bottom leaves the rest of the grid exactly where it is. So the skill is reading a couple of moves ahead: which removal will bring two sevens together, and which one will strand the last two queens on opposite corners. Every deal in the game was checked by a solver to be fully clearable, and later deals were chosen because careless play rarely finishes them. Undo and hints are always there, they just cost the three-star finish.
Free to play in your browser. No download, no sign-up. Works on phones, tablets and computers. Your progress is saved on this device.
