Here are the NYT Pips solutions for Saturday, April 4, 2026. Start with the hints if you want a nudge; the full Easy, Medium, and Hard walkthroughs follow below. These are placements from third-party guides, not an official New York Times answer key.
How to use these hints and answers
Pips is a domino-placement logic puzzle: place every tile on the board while meeting the pip condition shown for each color-coded region. Conditions can require equal values, different values, a total, a value above or below a threshold, or impose no condition. Tiles may be rotated, and a puzzle can have more than one valid solution. Technobezz’s April 4 guide describes these mechanics.
The daily set has Easy, Medium, and Hard boards, each with its own placements. If you are stuck on today’s NYT Pips, use the opening hints first and stop before the spoiler section if you still want to solve the boards yourself.
Hints for April 4
- Easy: Begin with the purple region that must total exactly six; the 6/1 domino is the suggested opening tile.
- Medium: Start at the exact-zero region, which takes the 0/0 domino.
- Hard: The exact-four single square is a useful constrained starting point.
The Easy opening is corroborated by MyPipsGame’s April 4 answer guide. EnergyPips identifies the Medium zero region and Hard single-square opening in its April 4 walkthrough.
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Spoilers: full Pips solutions
Warning: The placements below reveal the answers. Guides can describe colors, coordinates, and tile orientation differently; use one guide’s conventions at a time. Region conditions and pip values are the important constraints, and these third-party walkthroughs should not be read as proof that each board has only one valid solution.
Easy
Technobezz lists the following five dominoes and placements. The independent MyPipsGame guide confirms the 6/1 opening and the five-tile sequence, though its color wording differs.
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- Place 6/1 horizontally in the purple region requiring exactly six.
- Place 6/2 horizontally across the pink and teal equal-value regions.
- Place 6/4 horizontally across the pink equal-value region and the orange region requiring seven.
- Place 2/0 vertically across the teal equal-value region and the navy region requiring five.
- Place 3/5 horizontally across the orange seven region and the navy five region.
Medium
EnergyPips’ walkthrough counts board coordinates from the top-left, beginning at 1. Its region interpretation is:
- Less than six, single square: 5.
- Unrestricted single square: 6.
- Less than seven: 2 and 4.
- Exactly ten: 5 and 5.
- Exactly six: 3 and 3.
- Two separate exact-five regions: 2 + 3 and 1 + 4.
- Exactly zero: 0 + 0.
For the tile-by-tile placements and numbered coordinates, follow EnergyPips’ April 4 Medium walkthrough without mixing its labels with another guide’s orientation. MyPipsGame independently highlights the 5/5 double and includes a 0/0 placement.
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Hard
EnergyPips describes the Hard board as 32 squares filled by 16 dominoes. Its region values are listed below; they are a way to check the pip conditions, not a substitute for the guide’s consistent tile-and-coordinate sequence.
- Exactly nine: 4 + 5.
- Exactly four: 4.
- Greater than nine: 6 + 4.
- Exactly six: 6.
- Unrestricted square: 2.
- Less than four: 3.
- Two exact-two single squares: 2 and 2.
- Less-than-four pair: 2 + 1.
- Greater-than-four single: 5.
- Less-than-three single: 2.
- Two less-than-four singles: 3 and 3.
- Equal-value pair: 5 + 5.
- Exactly eight: 4 + 4.
- Exactly five: 0 + 5.
- Additional greater-than-four singles: 6 and 5.
- Exactly zero: 0.
- Exactly one: 1.
- Exactly seven: 3 + 4.
For all 16 placements, including coordinates and tile orientation, use the single sequence in EnergyPips’ April 4 Hard walkthrough. MyPipsGame also publishes a separate 16-placement sequence; because guides may label or orient placements differently, do not combine the two.
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