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These hints and reported answers are for the NYT Pips puzzle dated Friday, January 16, 2026. Start with the spoiler-light rules and Hard-puzzle clues below; the reported Hard walkthroughs conflict, so neither should be treated as an officially confirmed board layout.
How to approach the January 16 puzzle
Pips is a domino puzzle played on a grid. Use every domino and satisfy the condition shown in each colored region. The January 16 guides describe conditions such as matching values, unequal values, values above or below a target, an exact value, and unrestricted spaces. Forbes summarizes the objective: “You must use every domino and achieve every condition properly to win.” Forbes’s January 15 guide describes the rules and its Hard walkthrough.
Hints for the Hard puzzle
Forbes describes the Hard board as a mama worm with a baby worm. Its walkthrough begins by fitting pieces across the Pink 1 and Blue 24 regions, then uses a 3/3 in Purple 10 and 6/6 dominoes in the remaining Blue 24 spaces. Later moves work through the Orange = region and route pieces among Dark Blue 1, Purple 20, Blue 5, and Orange 5. These are clues to the route reported by Forbes, not confirmation of the official board’s intended layout.
Reported answers and the Hard-solution discrepancy
MyPipsGame’s January 16 guide reports placement sequences for Easy, Medium, and Hard. Forbes’s accessible guide identifies the Easy and Medium answers as images but does not transcribe their placements. The two guides give materially different Hard sequences: Forbes’s written route starts with a 1/6 from Pink 1 to Blue 24, while MyPipsGame’s sequence begins with 1/5, 1/1, 1/6, and 1/0 and continues through 14 placements. Because the sequences conflict and the official Hard board has not been independently confirmed against an NYT archive, do not treat them as interchangeable or assume either is definitive. Check that the date and board image match your puzzle before relying on a full placement sequence.
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Forbes’s reported Hard route
In Forbes’s walkthrough, the opening sequence places 1/6 from Pink 1 to Blue 24, 4/6 from Purple 10 to Blue 24, 3/3 in Purple 10, and 6/6 dominoes in the remaining Blue 24 spaces. The route then uses 4-valued dominoes in the Orange = group and moves through Dark Blue 1, Purple 20, Blue 5, and Orange 5. It finishes with 5/5 and 5/0 at Purple 20 and Pink 0. Forbes says the remaining 4/0, 2/5, and 3/1 dominoes can go in any order or direction in Green ≠. This is the sequence reported in Forbes’s guide, not an officially verified solution.
Easy and Medium answers
The date-specific guides identify the January 16 Easy and Medium answers, but Forbes’s accessible text does not provide their cell-by-cell placements. MyPipsGame publishes placements for both difficulties. Use its guide only after checking that its board corresponds to Friday, January 16, 2026.
Quick Recap
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