Pips Solver,
every domino placed instantly.

Field guide

How the Pips Solver works.

Pips is the New York Times' domino-based logic puzzle: a grid divided into colored regions, each carrying its own rule about the pip values that must end up covering it. You're handed a fixed set of standard dominoes — pip pairs from 0 through 6 — and have to place every single one of them onto the board so each region's rule holds. There's no shuffling and no leftover tiles: every domino goes down exactly once, and every playable cell gets covered exactly once.

How the constraints work

Each region shows one of five conditions: = means every cell it covers must show the same pip value; ≠ means they must all differ; a plain number is a sum target the region's cells must add up to exactly; and > or < means every individual cell in that region must clear, or stay under, the shown number.

Say a three-cell region shows the number 9, and two of its cells are already pinned at 4 and 3 by dominoes placed elsewhere on the board. The third cell has no real choice left — it has to be exactly 2, since 4 + 3 + 2 = 9 and nothing else satisfies the sum. That's the whole solving loop in miniature: place dominoes, watch a region's remaining slack shrink, and let the arithmetic force the rest.

Reading this solver's grid

Set the board's rows and columns to match the real puzzle first — Pips grids are irregular, so use the eraser tool to punch out any cells that don't actually exist on your board. Add a region for each color you see, pick its condition from the dropdown (typing in a target number for the sum, greater-than, or less-than conditions), and paint it onto the matching cells. Finally, work through the domino tray in the side panel and click every domino your puzzle actually gives you — the count on each tile should match exactly what's shown in the real game before you hit Solve.

Pips vs. traditional dominoes

If you've played dominoes before, one rule here will surprise you: touching tiles don't need to match pips at all. Two dominoes can sit side by side showing a 6 next to a 1 with no penalty — it's regions, not neighboring tiles, that get judged. The other twist is that a single domino is allowed to straddle a region boundary, with each half judged only against the rule of the region it's actually sitting in. Both quirks are what make Pips a genuinely different puzzle from ordinary dominoes, and both are handled automatically by the solver above.

Disclaimer: This tool is an independent fan creation and is not affiliated with, authorized, or endorsed by The New York Times Company. “Pips” is a trademark of its respective owner. Provided for practice and entertainment only.