Saturday brings a fresh set of NYT Pips puzzles. Today's trio leans on a familiar zone layout, so the challenge is less about reading the board and more about sequencing your placements without painting yourself into a corner. We've got a quick hint for each of the Easy, Medium, and Hard puzzles.
How to Play Pips
Pips is a domino placement puzzle where you fill a grid of color-coded zones. Each zone has a condition you must satisfy using the pip values on your dominoes. The twist: you must use every domino and meet every condition to win.
Zone Conditions:
- = All pips in this zone must equal the same number
- Not Equal All pips must be different numbers
- > Pips must be greater than the listed number
- < Pips must be less than the listed number
- Exact Number Pips must total that exact value
- No Color Free space, any domino value works
Click or tap dominoes to rotate them. Each puzzle has one or more valid solutions.
Today's Easy Pips
Today's Medium Pips
Today's Hard Pips
Puzzle Debrief
Overall Difficulty: Moderate challenge
Trickiest Puzzle: Hard - the same zone layout across all three boards means the difficulty comes purely from the tighter constraints, and one wrong early placement can cascade through the whole grid.
Our Take: Today is a clean lesson in ordering. All three puzzles share the same zone structure, so the difference is entirely about discipline and sequencing rather than board reading. Lock in the strict zones first, keep the flexible spaces for last, and the set falls into place.
Tomorrow's Pips drops at midnight. See you then.
