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.

Hello again, Pipsqueaks. Sorry I’ve been away. I have been so busy, I needed to take a little break from this Pips column to make time for everything else. Life has been very busy! In any case, I’m going to try to fit it back into the schedule now. Grab your dominoes and let’s get to it!

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 airport today: DFW, aka Dallas Fort-Worth. I think the only time I’ve been in Dallas was at DFW, actually. In any case, today’s Hard Pips has a few doubles, and at least one of those is a pretty good place to start. I actually started in the “F” however, and moved to the “D” where I placed the first double. This worked out well, because the dominoes I placed in the “F” limited what I could use in “D.” Here’s how it goes.

The Purple = group requires a double and we know that 4/6 + 6/6 or 4/0 + 0/0 will work. But if you look at the “F” you’ll see that we need th 4/0 domino there. Place the 3/0 domino from Dark Blue < 4 into Orange 0 and then 0/4 from Orange 0 down into Pink =. The 4/5 domino goes from Pink = over into Blue 5. Now we can move to the “D” and place the 4/6 domino from Blue 4 into Purple = and the 6/6 domino below that.

We’ll continue with the “D” and place the 2/5 domino from Pink 2 into Purple 11 and the 6/3 domino from Purple 11 down into Green 8. the 5/3 domino goes from Green 8 into Orange = and the 3/1 goes from Orange = into Green 1. Now move back to the “F” and pop the 1/1 domino in Dark Blue =. We know it has to go here since it can’t work in Purple < 2 but 0/0 can.

Speaking of which, place the 0/0 in Purple < 2. Now place the 1/6 domino from Dark Blue > 0 into Blue = and the 0/6 from the free tile into Blue =. The 2/6 goes from Green > 1 into Blue = and the 5/1 finishes things off from Orange > 3 into Pink < 3.

Have a wondrous Wednesday, Pipsqueaks!

How’d you do on today’s Pips?

New Bonus Weekly NYT Games Update

The New York Times launched a new weekly suit of bonus puzzle games for subscribers this week, and the first batch has freebies for non-subscribers also. You can read all about the new twists on the beloved games here , and watch my interview with NYT Games chief, Jonathan Knight below :

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