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.

I hope all you fine Pipsqueaks had a lovely Labor Day holiday, filled with relaxation and puzzle-solving. We’re back to the grindstone today, so grab some dominoes and let’s get these Pips sorted!

Looking for Monday ’ s Pips? Read our guide right 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:

An alpaca or perhaps a llama is our Hard Pips today. A noble beast with a pink nose and pink tail and one pink hoof. We only have three doubles today, and we know we’ll need two of those — one for Pink = in the tail and one for the large Purple = group in the center. Counting our dominoes, the 2’s will need to be in Purple, and since it looks like Blue = will be 0’s (given the Pink 2 and Purple 1 tiles up in the alpaca’s head) that means the Pink = will be 3’s.

Start with the 2/0 domino from Pink 2 into Blue = and the 1/0 domino from Purple 1 into Blue =. Hop down to the tail and place the 3/3 domino in Pink = and the 3/2 domino from Pink = into Purple =. The 2/2 domino goes next to that in Purple =.

The 2/1 domino goes from Purple = up into Green 1 and the 2/6 domino goes from Purple = into Dark Blue 10. Place the 4/3 domino from Dark Blue 10 into Orange = and the 0/3 domino from Blue = into Orange =. Now the question becomes, where do we place the 2/4 domino? A quick survey of our remaining pips tells us that Green = will almost certainly have to be 4’s, so place the 2/4 domino from Purple = straight down into Green =.

Place the 1/5 domino from Purple 1 into Dark Blue 11 and the 6/4 domino from Dark Blue 11 into Green =. The 5/4 domino goes from Orange > 3 into Green = and the 4/1 domino finishes up Green = into Pink 1. That leaves us with the 0/0 domino for Blue = and we’re don!

Have a terrific Tuesday, 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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