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Here are hints and the solution path for the NYT Pips puzzle dated Tuesday, December 23, 2025. The walkthrough below covers the Hard board; the Easy and Medium answers were published as images, so their exact placements are not reproduced here.
How NYT Pips works
Pips is a domino-placement logic game: use every domino to fill the grid while satisfying the conditions shown in colored groups. The conditions described in the guide are:
- Equal: pip counts in the group must be equal.
- Not equal: pip counts in the group must differ.
- Greater than or less than: the group’s total must be above or below its stated threshold.
- Exact value: the group must total the stated number.
- Unmarked spaces: these have no special condition.
Some boards may have more than one valid solution, so the placements below are the source author’s path rather than a claim that every board has a unique arrangement. Forbes’ December 22, 2025 guide provides the Hard-board sequence.
Hard Pips solution path
Use the dominoes in this order to follow the published walkthrough:
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Wooden Dominoes for Kids, Dominos Matching Game for Preschool and Age 3+
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- Place 2/1 from Purple 2 into the Blue equal group.
- Place 5/1 from Orange greater than 10 into Blue equal.
- Connect Blue equal to Pink equal with 1/4.
- Place 4/0 from Pink equal into Orange 0.
- Place 0/3 from Orange 0 into Pink not-equal.
- Connect Dark Blue 3 to Green less than 3 with 3/2.
- Use the doubles 5/5 and 4/4 to connect Dark Blue 5 and Blue 4 with Pink not-equal.
- Place 4/5 from Pink equal into Purple 10.
- Place 10/3 from Purple 10 into Blue 6.
- Place 3/4 from Blue 6 into Green 8.
- Finish with 4/6 from Green 8 into Orange less than 10.
Easy and Medium answers
The December 23 guide shows the Easy and Medium solutions as images, but its opened text does not state their exact domino placements. Because those arrangements cannot be checked from the text, they are not transcribed here.
Play the puzzle
The official NYT Games destination for Pips is NYT Games: Pips.
Quick Recap
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