Today's Pips

Credit: NYT

Looking for help with today’s NYT Pips puzzles? You’ve come to the right place. Not only will you find strategies below, but full answers for each daily trio of Pips puzzles and a full walkthrough for the Hard Pips.

It’s been a very long day and I think I’m going to skip a clever preamble and just dive right into this trio of Pips puzzles if you don’t mind. Hope you brought some dominoes . . . .

Looking for Sunday’s Pips? Read our guide right here.

How To Play Pips

In Pips, you have a grid of multi=-colored boxes. Each colored area represents a different “condition” that you have to achieve. You have a select number of dominoes that you have to spend filling in the grid. You must use every domino and achieve every condition properly to win. There are Easy, Medium and Difficult tiers.

Here’s an example of a difficult tier Pips:

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As you can see, the grid has a bunch of symbols and numbers with each color. On the far left, the three purple squares must not equal one another (hence the equal sign crossed out). The two pink squares next to that must equal a total of 0. The zig-zagging blue squares all must equal one another. You click on dominoes to rotate them, and will need to since they have to be rotated to fit where they belong.

Not shown on this grid are other conditions, such as “less than” or “greater than.” If there are multiple tiles with > or < signs, the total of those tiles must be greater or less than the listed number. It varies by grid. Blank spaces can have anything. The various possible conditions are:

• = All pips must equal one another in this group.
• ≠ All pips must not equal one another in this group.
• > The pip in this tile (or tiles) must be greater than the listed number.
• < The pip in this tile must be less than the listed number.
• An exact number (like 6) The pip must equal this exact number.
• Tiles with no conditions can be anything.

In order to win, you have to use up all your dominoes by filling in all the squares, making sure to fit each condition. Sometimes there’s only one way to solve the puzzle. Other times, there can be two or more different solutions. Play today’s Pips puzzle here.

Today’s Pips Solutions And Walkthrough

Below are the solutions for the Easy and Medium tier Pips. After that, I’ll walk you through the Hard puzzle. Spoilers ahead.

Today’s Easy Pips

Today’s Medium Pips

Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution

Here’s today’s Hard Pips:

Yesterday was “NEW” and today’s Hard Pips is “OLD” and unlike yesterday’s there are no free tiles today whatsoever. There’s also the Pink 8 group that doesn’t connect to anything else, and could be fulfilled by the 5/3 domino, the 6/2 domino or the 4/4 domino. We won’t know about that for awhile. I started, today, with the “L.”

Step 1

Place the 0/2 domino from Dark Blue 0 into Orange 7 and the 5/3 domino from Orange 7 up into Purple 3. Hop down to the “D” and place the 0/6 domino from Orange 0 into Blue 10 and the 4/3 domino from Blue 10 into Green 6.

Step 2

Next, place the 3/0 domino from Green 6 into Purple 0 and leap up to the “O” where you’ll place the 0/4 domino from Blue 0 into Orange 9. The 5/1 domino goes above that from Orange 9 into Pink 4 and the 3/6 domino goes from Pink 4 into Purple 12.

Solution

Place the 6/5 domino from Purple 12 down into Green > 2 and the 5/2 domino in the Pink 7 tiles. Move over to the “L” and place the 4/4 domino from Blue > 3 down into Dark Blue > 3. Finally, place the 2/6 domino in Pink 8 in the “D” and you’re done!

Have a marvelous Monday, Pipsqueaks!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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