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.

Sorry for my recent lack of Pips guides. Life has been enormously busy. I’ve been publishing a lot of TV guide stuff and there have been so many new shows and movies and all the rest. That, on top of my slightly insane exercise regimen lately, has left me exhausted and somewhat burnt out and after quite a few nights working until 10 or 11 pm I had to cut somewhere. The sad truth is, Pips is not a huge draw and while I know some readers really enjoy this column (I’ve heard from you!) it’s also sort of hard to justify sometimes unfortunately. Work-to-return is one of those calculations one has to make when one is working as much as I have been lately. In any case, I’ll try to be more consistent, but I can’t promise anything. For now, let’s solve this 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:

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.

Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution

Here’s today’s Hard Pips:

Today’s Hard Pips is FE, aka Iron on the periodic table of elements, and it’s also quite easy for a Hard Pips, unfortunately. We have the Pink 10 that could be either our 5/5 domino or our 6/4 domino, but you need the 6/4 domino from Dark Blue > 2 into Orange 6, so that’s both those out of the way right off the bat.

From there we can place the 2/4 domino from Pink 2 into Purple = since that’s the only option left to us. The 4/4 finishes up Purple = and we’ll slot the 2/6 from Green > 1 into Orange > 11.

Next, place the 6/1 domino from Dark Blue 6 up into Blue 6 and the 5/3 from Blue 6 into the first free tile. We only have one 2 left so pop the 2/0 from Purple 2 into the second free tile. The 3/3 domino finishes up Orange > 11 and the 0/4 domino goes into Blue < 6. And that, dearest Pipsqueaks, is that.

Have a magical Monday, Pipsqueaks!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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