How to Solve NYT Pips: A Strategy Guide for Every Region Rule

Pips looks friendly: a handful of dominoes, a board with colored patches, and a rule printed on each patch. Then you place three dominoes and discover that the fourth has nowhere legal to go. Almost every stuck Pips board comes from the same cause, which is placing dominoes before understanding what each region can accept.

This guide shows you how to read the rules, find the placements that are forced, and work through the Medium and Hard boards without undoing half your work.

How Pips Boards Work

You are given a set of dominoes and a board. Dominoes go down horizontally or vertically, and every cell on the board has to be covered. Some cells sit inside colored regions with a rule printed on them, and some regions carry no condition at all. A domino can have one half inside a region and the other outside, which is why a single placement often affects two regions.

The region rules you will meet are a sum (the halves in the region add up to a target), equals (every half in the region has the same number of pips), not equal (the halves must all differ), and less than or greater than a stated number. Every domino in the rack is used.

Techniques That Work

Read all the rules before you place anything

Start by looking at every region and writing down, in your head, what it needs. A sum of 12 across two cells needs two sixes. A less-than-2 region can only hold blanks and ones. Once you have the whole board in mind, some cells stand out as obviously constrained.

Start where the rule is strictest

Look for the cells with the fewest possible halves:

• A single-cell region with a sum names its number outright.
• A region with a very high or very low sum has only one or two ways to be filled.
• A region demanding a 0 or a 6, or capped by a comparison, accepts very few domino halves.

Lock these in first. Every one you place reduces what the neighbors can hold.

Count your rack against the demands

Before committing, add up what the board needs. If three regions each need a six and your rack has only two sixes, something has to give, and you can work out which region it is. This kind of count is quick and tells you early whether a plan is possible.

Do the same for blanks and for high halves. The rack is exact, so every domino has a home.

Place doubles with confidence

A double is the same whichever way you rotate it, so it cannot cause an orientation mistake. Inside an equals region, a double is an especially safe commitment because both halves are identical by definition. Place doubles early when the board gives you a spot for them, since they are the tiles with the fewest ways to go wrong.

Use dead ends and corners

A cell with only one open neighbor can be covered in only one way. That means the domino covering it has a forced position, even before you know which domino it is. Corners and narrow corridors give you free placements, and each one tells you which halves are available for neighboring regions.

Recheck neighbors after every placement

After you place a domino, go back to the regions it touches and ask what changed. A sum region that had two cells open may now have one, and that one cell may now be forced to a single value. Placing, then rechecking, is the loop that solves hard boards. Pips is a chain of eliminations, not a set of independent puzzles.

Use not-equal regions as eliminators

A not-equal region needs all its halves to be different, which limits it more than it first seems. A region with four cells needs four different values, so it consumes four distinct numbers. If your rack is short on variety, that region may only work with a specific combination. Count the distinct values you have before filling it.

A made-up example

Imagine a two-cell region that must sum to 12, next to a one-cell region that must sum to 0. The first needs two sixes, so you need a 6|6 double or two dominoes that each have a six. The second needs a blank half. If your rack contains a 6|6, it fits the first region in one placement. If it does not, you know that two different dominoes each contribute a six, and each of those dominoes has its other half somewhere else on the board. The second region needs a domino with a blank half, which narrows the rack further.

By the time you have placed those three, you have used up your highest and lowest pips, and what remains in the middle is far easier to sort out.

Easy, Medium, and Hard

The three boards each day use the same kinds of rules, with Medium and Hard generally bigger and denser. On Easy, you can often solve by working through the tight regions in order. On Medium and Hard, a placement that looks forced may depend on a count of the rack, so the habit of tallying supply and demand becomes more important.

If you get stuck on Hard, drop back to the sum regions at the extremes. They are rarely the problem. The trouble is usually in the middle, where a comparison or a not-equal region leaves several options open. Place what is certain, then see which options survive.

Common Mistakes

• Placing by space instead of by rule. The grid shape suggests natural domino positions, but the rules decide where tiles belong.
• Ignoring the rack. Planning a layout that needs more sixes than you have means undoing work later.
• Treating regions in isolation. A domino often covers two regions at once, so a legal move for one may break the other.
• Forgetting that uncolored cells are free. If a half has nowhere useful to go, an uncolored cell may be its home.
• Guessing instead of eliminating. If two placements both seem to work, you have probably missed a constraint.

Using Hints Without Spoiling the Puzzle

If you are stuck, our Pips hints offer a nudge for each of the three boards, and on Hard they can confirm a single placement so you can keep going on your own. The full solution stays hidden until you decide you want it.

Pips has the same appeal as other logic puzzles, where a few forced moves unlock the rest. Sudoku rewards the same habit of scanning for the most constrained spot, Letter Boxed rewards planning ahead, and our list of logic puzzles like Pips has more.

The Short Version

Read every rule first, begin where the options are fewest, and count your rack against what the board demands. Place doubles early, use corners and dead ends for free placements, and recheck the neighbors after every move. Pips rewards patience and tallying more than clever guesses.

Word Game Clues is an independent hint site and is not affiliated with The New York Times or any of the game publishers mentioned here.