Looking for help with today’s Easy, Medium and Hard NYT Pips puzzles? Whether you’re after a nudge in the right direction or just want to compare notes, below you’ll find everything you need to solve each of today’s Pips plus a full walkthrough for today’s Hard Pips.
Monday is here at last, and it’s the exact halfway point in the month of June. We have just a handful of days getting longer before the Summer Solstice and then they start to get shorter once again. There’s a chance of rain, so once I’m done here I’m off to do a little rain dance and make an offering to the rain fairies. For now, load up on dominoes and let’s solve these Pips!
Looking for Sunday’s Pips? Read our guide right here.
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.
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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.
Today’s Easy Pips
Today’s Medium Pips
Hard Pips Walkthrough And Solution
Here’s today’s Hard Pips:
As expected, today’s Hard Pips is the second half of the word SOCCER. There are three 11 groups, and these are good guideposts since they’ll eat up all our 6’s and 5’s (except for one). With two right next to one another, we know where at least one domino needs to go, though we have to extrapolate out a bit to determine which direction it falls.
Step 1
Start with the 6/5 domino from Dark Blue 11 down into Purple 11 and the 6/3 domino from Purple 11 into Pink > 2. Then hop over to the “C” and place the 2/5 domino into Green 11 and the 6/0 domino from Green 11 into the first free tile.
Step 2
Next, place the 4/2 domino from Blue > 2 into Pink = and the 2/2 domino in the remaining Pink = tiles. Move to the “R” and place the 5/1 domino from Orange 5 into Blue = and the 1/1 domino in the next Blue = tiles.
Solution
Place the 1/2 domino from Blue = into the second free tile, then move back to the “E.” Place the 5/0 domino from Dark Blue 11 into the third free tile and the 3/0 domino from Orange > 2 into Purple < 4. The 0/0 domino finishes that group up and we’re done!
Have a great rest of your Monday, Pipsqueaks!
How’d you do on today’s Pips?
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