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Here are spoiler-light hints and the reported placements for the NYT Pips puzzles from Monday, December 1, 2025. The year is included because “December 1” alone does not identify a date-specific puzzle. The placements below come from a published guide, not an official NYT answer key, and are not established as the only possible solutions.
Spoiler-light hints
- Easy: Track each colored region separately: a domino can cross a boundary, and only the half inside a region counts toward its condition.
- Medium: The board mixes totals with equality and threshold clues. Check the condition written for each region rather than treating every number as a sum.
- Hard: Several regions have total-12 conditions alongside zero and greater-than clues. Keep the placements organized by region to avoid mixing their requirements.
The hints and placements are reported in Mashable via Yahoo Tech’s December 1, 2025 guide.
How Pips clues work
Pips uses domino-like tiles placed horizontally or vertically. Color-coded regions impose conditions on the tile halves within them; uncolored areas have no condition. A tile may cross from one region into another, so only the half inside a particular region applies to that region’s clue.
- Total or sum: The values in the region must add to the stated number.
- Equal: Values in the region must match the stated value.
- Less than or greater than: The region’s value must fall below or above its threshold, as indicated.
Easy answers
The following placements are those reported for the easy board. Orientation is included where given.
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- Total 15: 5–5 horizontally; 5–3 horizontally.
- Total 3, red region: 5–3 horizontally.
- Equal 3: 2–0 horizontally; 2–3 vertically.
- Less than 3: 1–1 vertically.
- Total 3, dark blue region: 2–3 vertically.
Medium answers
- Total 4: 4–3 vertically.
- Greater than 4: 6–4 vertically.
- Less than 11: 4–3 vertically; 6–2 vertically.
- Equal 4: 6–4 vertically; 5–4 vertically; 4–0 vertically.
- Equal 1: 1–1 vertically.
- Equal 2: 2–2 vertically; 2–5 vertically.
- Total 0: 4–0 vertically.
- Greater than 4, second region: 2–5 vertically.
Hard answers
- Less than 4: 1–3 horizontally.
- Total 3: 1–4 vertically; 1–3 horizontally; 1–5 vertically.
- Greater than 4: 1–5 vertically.
- Total 12, purple region: 6–0 horizontally; 6–3 vertically.
- Total 0: 0–2 horizontally; 6–0 horizontally; 0–3 vertically.
- Total 12, light blue region: 0–2 horizontally; 2–6 horizontally; 2–3 horizontally; 2–2 vertically; 2–4 horizontally.
- Total 10: 4–5 horizontally; 5–6 horizontally.
- Greater than 3: 2–5 horizontally.
- Total 12, another region: 6–6 vertically.
- Greater than 2: 3–2 horizontally.
- Total 12, another region: 2–6 horizontally; 5–6 horizontally.
About the hard-board walkthrough
Erik Kain’s Forbes walkthrough for Monday, December 1 also covers the hard board. It is a secondary cross-check; the cited guides do not establish that the listed regional placements form one unique solution.
Quick Recap
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Rank #3
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