Today’s Pips

Credit: NYT

Alas, the weekend is over and a new work week has begun. The best part about the week is anticipating the weekend, of course, and there’s truth to the idea that anticipating something is often better than the something being anticipated. So maybe the week is actually better than the weekend . . . or maybe I’m making too big a swing at silver linings. Either way, we have a Pips puzzle to solve. Let’s solve it!

Looking for Sunday’s Pips? Read our guide right here.

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How To Play Pips

In Pips, you have a grid of multicolored 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:

Pips example

Screenshot: Erik Kain

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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.

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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.

Today’s Easy Pips

Today’s Easy Pips

Screenshot: Erik Kain

Today’s Medium Pips

Today’s Medium Pips

Screenshot: Erik Kain

Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution

Here’s today’s Hard Pips:

Today’s Hard Pips

Screenshot: Erik Kain

Today’s Hard Pips is the mirror opposite of yesterday’s, which was a “2”. This is the letter “S” which. All three tiers today were interesting. A “4” for the Easy pips and some kind of ladder or Roman numeral-looking puzzle for Medium.

In any case, today doesn’t have a really obvious starting point, and I’m going to break one of my soft rules and start at the top where the free tile is (I typically suggest saving a free tile for last).

Step 1

The reason I started at the top is that I just wasn’t sure what combination would make the Pink 6 group at the bottom. Too many ways to make 6, but only one way to make the Purple 12 group at the top: two 6’s.

I began with the 6/2 from Purple 12 down into Blue 8 and then placed the 0/2 from Pink 0 into Blue 8. I wasn’t 100% sure if the next dominoes would be correct, but this is what my gut told me and I ended up solving today’s Pips without having to change a single domino.

I placed the 2/2 domino in the remaining Blue 8 tiles and slotted the 6/3 domino from Purple 12 into the free tile. This made sense, but of course that 6/3 could potentially have gone in the bottom right Dark Blue 6 tile.

Today’s Hard Pips

Screenshot: Erik Kain

Step 2

Next up, I placed the 6/4 domino from Orange 11 into Dark Blue 4 and the 5/3 domino from Orange 11 into Green =. I placed the 3/3 domino in the remaining Green = spots.

Today’s Hard Pips

Screenshot: Erik Kain

Step 3

At this point, I worried that I’d miscalculated and wouldn’t be able to make the Pink 6 group work, but I realized that the 6/1 domino from Dark Blue 6 into Pink 6 would actually go perfectly with the 5/0 domino from Pink 6 into Purple 0. I plopped the 1/0 domino from Blue 3 into Purple 0.

Today’s Hard Pips

Screenshot: Erik Kain

Solution

Two double dominoes left. I placed the 1/1 domino in the remaining Blue 3 tiles and the 5/5 domino into Orange 10, and I was done!

Today’s Hard Pips

Screenshot: Erik Kain

Despite being the same (if mirrored) shape as yesterday’s Pips, this one was much easier, or I just got luckier, or maybe I just did a good job looking ahead and strategizing today. Either way, I got through this with no errors and that makes me happy. How did you do? Did you manage to find any alternative solutions?

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