NYT Pips Hints, Answers and Walkthrough for Wednesday, April 29, 2026

Wednesday brings a fresh set of NYT Pips puzzles. Today's lineup is a balanced midweek challenge with consistent zone patterns across all three difficulties, rewarding players who focus on exact-number and equal-value conditions first. We've got hints, step-by-step walkthroughs, and full solutions for Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty levels.

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

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Today's Medium Pips

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Today's Hard Pips

Quick Hints (No Spoilers)

Starting Point: The navy (=) zones are non-negotiable. With three of them on the board, every domino touching navy must carry the same pip value on that cell. Start there or you will paint yourself into a corner.

Key Insight: The pink (11) zone is the bottleneck. It requires a specific total from a limited set of dominoes. Work backward from this zone to determine which dominoes are reserved for it, then fit everything else around that constraint.

Watch Out For: The orange (>5) and navy (>4) zones share a domino boundary. If you put a low-value domino there, you will have to rebuild half the grid. Commit to a high-value bridge early.

Step-by-Step Walkthrough

1. 1.Start with the navy (=) zones. You have three navy zones to satisfy. Place the 6/6 horizontally in the first navy zone to lock in a six-value. Then place the 0/6 vertically across pink (<4) and navy (=) - the 0 is safe for pink, the 6 matches navy. Finally, place the 6/4 vertically across navy (=) and purple (>3) to lock the third navy zone with a matching 6.
2. 2.Move to the green (=) zones. Place the 4/4 horizontally and the 1/1 horizontally. These are straightforward matches that give you two completed zones with minimal ripple effects.
3. 3.Place the 4/0 vertically across purple (4) and orange (<4). The 4 hits the exact purple requirement and the 0 stays under 4 for orange. This is a clean two-zone solve.
4. 4.Fill the teal (4) zones. Place 0/3 vertically and 1/0 vertically. Each totals exactly 4. These are the only teal zones, so once they are placed, teal is done.
5. 5.Place the 6/5 horizontally across orange (>5) and navy (>4). This is the critical bridge. Both values must clear their thresholds - 6 is greater than 5, 5 is greater than 4. A wrong domino here forces a full restart.
6. 6.Place the 2/2 horizontally in the remaining purple (4) zone. Simple math: 2+2=4.
7. 7.Bridge pink (<4) and teal (=) with the 2/0 domino horizontally. Both values are under 4, and the 0 feeds the teal equal-value requirement.
8. 8.Place the 0/0 vertically in the final teal (=) zone. Clean match.
9. 9.Solve the pink (11) zone last. Place the 1/3 vertically across green (=) and pink (11), then the 6/2 horizontally in pink (11). The pink zone contains the 3 from the vertical domino plus the 6 and 2 from the horizontal domino, totaling exactly 11.

Hard Pips Solution

Last chance to solve independently

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1. 1.Place the 4/0 domino vertically in the purple (4) zone and orange (<4) zone
2. 2.Place the 6/6 domino horizontally in the navy (=) zone
3. 3.Place the 0/6 domino vertically in the pink (<4) zone and navy (=) zone
4. 4.Place the 6/4 domino vertically in the navy (=) zone and purple (>3) zone
5. 5.Place the 4/4 domino horizontally in the green (=) zone
6. 6.Place the 0/3 domino vertically in the teal (4) zone
7. 7.Place the 1/0 domino vertically in the teal (4) zone
8. 8.Place the 6/5 domino horizontally in the orange (>5) zone and navy (>4) zone
9. 9.Place the 2/2 domino horizontally in the purple (4) zone
10. 10.Place the 2/0 domino horizontally in the pink (<4) zone and teal (=) zone
11. 11.Place the 0/0 domino vertically in the teal (=) zone
12. 12.Place the 1/1 domino horizontally in the green (=) zone
13. 13.Place the 1/3 domino vertically in the green (=) zone and pink (11) zone
14. 14.Place the 6/2 domino horizontally in the pink (11) zone

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Puzzle Debrief

Overall Difficulty: Moderate challenge - the zone layouts are identical across all three difficulties, so the progression comes from the placement logic and domino count rather than radically different configurations.

Trickiest Puzzle: Hard - the pink (11) zone is the real trap. It looks like a simple sum, but the overlapping green (=) zone creates a dependency that can mislead you into overcounting or undercounting the pip total. Many solvers will lock the green zone first and then realize they have no dominoes left to hit 11 in pink.

Our Take: Today's set rewards patience over speed. The equal-value navy zones are the skeleton of every puzzle, and once you understand how they constrain the entire grid, the rest falls into place. The identical zone layouts across difficulty levels make this a great day to practice your deductive chain - solve Easy, then see if you can replicate the logic on Hard without the walkthrough.

Tomorrow's Pips drops at midnight. See you then.