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 October! Holy smokes, how did that happen? October already, and soon Halloween and then Christmas and this year has been such a blur, I feel like we just packed up the Christmas stuff. Maybe that’s just a sign you’re getting older. Time keeps happening differently. Ah well, the Pips keep coming and we keep knockin’ ‘em down, as one does with dominoes. Shall we?

Looking for Wednesday’s Pips solutions? Read our guide here .

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:

Another grid-style Hard Pips and this time the doubles rule doesn’t apply as clean as it normally does. 9 times out of 10 these style of Pips grids come with no doubles at all, which is a really good clue. Today’s has a 0/0 and a 6/6 to throw us off, but that’s it, which means we know exactly where to start: The top left corner of the grid where two 1’s sit side-by-side.

Place the 1/2 domino from Purple 1 into Green 2. This has to go in this exact spot and because it has to go here, we can only place the 1/3 from Pink 1 into Purple 3 right next to it, and because there is then a 2 next to another 2 we know that 2/3 goes from Blue 2 into Pink 3 and Orange 2 goes into Blue 6. That’s four in a row right at the top.

Next, place the 5/1 domino from Orange 5 down into Blue 1 since there’s nowhere else it can go. From here, I jumped across the board and made some educated guesses. There are two 1’s in the bottom left corner and one of them has to go into the free tile. The Dark Blue 5 above that also has to go into the free tile space, which means the two 0’s (Dark Blue 0 and Green 0) almost certainly need to be the 0/0 domino, since the Dark Blue 1 has to go up into Orange 6 (it could go down, but those two 6’s right next to one another look like a 6/6 spot to me. Also, if we use the 6/0 domino here we’ll be in trouble on the right side of the board).

So place the 0/0 from Dark Blue 0 into Green 0 and the 6/6 from Orange 6 into Dark Blue 6. The 1/6 goes from Dark Blue 1 into Orange 6. Now we’re cookin’.

Saving the free tiles for the end, place the 0/6 domino from Pink 0 down into Blue 6 and the 5/6 domino from Pink 5 into Purple 6. The 3/6 goes next to that from Purple 3 down into Green 6 and the 0/2 goes from Dark Blue 0 down into Green 2.

Place the 5/2 domino from Pink 5 into Purple 2 and now it’s all free tile combinations. The 4/2 goes from Green 4 into the bottom free tile, the 5/3 goes from Dark Blue 5 into the top free tile and the 1/4 domino goes from Blue 1 into the middle free tile — and you’re done!

Have an opulent October, Pipsqueaks!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

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