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Here are the reported hints and placements for the archived NYT Pips board dated Monday, December 29, 2025. The page includes spoiler-marked answers for Easy and Medium, plus a step-by-step Hard walkthrough. These are third-party solution reports, not solutions published by The New York Times.
How this Pips board works
Pips is a digital domino-placement puzzle: place every domino on the grid so the pip values in each colored region satisfy that region’s condition. Rules can require equal or unequal values, a total above or below a threshold, or an exact total; some cells have no condition. A domino may be rotated, and if its halves cross differently colored regions, each half is checked against the rule for its own region. A puzzle may have more than one valid solution. Forbes’ guide explains the mechanics and reports that more than one solution can be possible.
Easy answers
The December 29 answer listings report these Easy placements. Orientations below describe the reported placements; they are not a claim that each domino has only one legal position.
- Greater than 5: place 6–4 horizontally.
- Exact total 1: place 4–1 vertically.
- Exact total 8: place 4–4 horizontally.
- Less than 3: place 2–4 horizontally.
- Equal-4 red region: place 6–4 horizontally.
- Equal-5 green region: place 5–5 horizontally.
The clue labels come from Pips Hint’s December 29 page; the placements are reported by Yahoo Tech.
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Medium answers
Yahoo Tech’s December 29 listing reports the following placements by region. Because the listing is not a complete board diagram here, these moves should be read as the reported placement set, not as additional inferred moves.
- Greater than 0: 1–5 horizontally.
- One exact-10 region: 1–5 horizontally and 5–0 vertically.
- Another exact-10 region: 6–4 horizontally and 4–0 vertically.
- Another exact-10 region: 6–4 horizontally and 6–6 vertically.
- Another exact-10 region: 6–6 vertically and 4–3 horizontally.
- A further exact-10 region: 5–2 vertically and 4–3 horizontally.
These placements are attributed to Yahoo Tech’s answer listing.
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Hard solution walkthrough
Forbes reports 16 dominoes on the Hard board. Its walkthrough begins with the tightly constrained totals in the upper-right, then works through the equal, threshold, and unequal regions. The moves below follow that reported sequence.
1. Start with Blue 12 and Orange 20
The Blue 12 region needs two sixes. Orange 20 needs four fives, since the guide says there are not enough fours or sixes to make that total. Begin by placing:
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- 6–5 from Dark Blue 12 into Orange 20.
- 6–4 from Dark Blue 12 into Blue greater-than-3.
- 5–5 in the next two Orange 20 spaces.
2. Fill the Orange equal region and neighboring totals
- Place 3–4 from Orange equal into Green greater-than-3.
- Place 3–3 in the next two Orange equal spaces.
- Place 3–1 from Orange equal into Pink 3.
- Place 3–6 from Orange equal into Green 12.
- Place 6–2 from Green 12 into Purple less-than-3.
- Use 1–1 to finish Pink 3.
3. Complete the upper-left Purple and Pink regions
- Place 2–2 in the bottom Purple equal spaces.
- Place 2–3 from Purple equal into Pink 3.
4. Finish the unequal groups
- Place 6–1 from Dark Blue 6 into Blue unequal.
- Place 2–5 from Blue unequal into the last Orange 20 space.
- Place 0–5 in the top Blue unequal spaces.
- Put the remaining 4–2 and 5–1 dominoes in the bottom-right Purple unequal group. The guide allows either order for these last two dominoes.
This Hard walkthrough is reported by Forbes contributor Erik Kain. The Easy and Medium placements above are attributed to Yahoo Tech; they are reported answer sets rather than a claim that each board has a unique solution.
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