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Here are the NYT Pips solutions for Friday, March 13, 2026, with a hint-first guide followed by the full placements for Easy, Medium, and Hard. Spoilers begin in the solution sections. Coordinates use rows and columns counted from the board’s top-left, starting at 1.
Hints before the solutions
Each board must be filled with every available domino, while every colored region must satisfy its clue. Start with the most constrained region on each level:
- Easy: The top-left two-square region totals 11, forcing pips 5 and 6. In the top-right equal region, use the 3–3 domino.
- Medium: The top-left two-square region totals 1, forcing pips 0 and 1. The board is made up mostly of exact-sum regions.
- Hard: Begin with the single-square zero-sum region; it must receive a zero pip.
For a spoiler-free attempt, stop here. The complete placements follow.
Easy solution: 10 squares, 5 dominoes
Place the dominoes as follows:
- 2–2: row 3, columns 1–2.
- 3–3: rows 1–2, column 4.
- 4–4: row 3, columns 3–4.
- 5–5: row 1, columns 2–3.
- 6–6: rows 1–2, column 1.
Medium solution: 14 squares, 7 dominoes
Place the dominoes as follows:
- 3–1: row 4, columns 1–2.
- 2–6: row 3, columns 2–3.
- 1–4: row 1, columns 1–2.
- 5–3: row 1, column 3 and row 2, column 3.
- 0–0: rows 2–3, column 1.
- 4–5: row 4, columns 3–4.
- 4–3: row 3, column 4 and row 2, column 4.
Hard solution: 30 squares, 15 dominoes
Place the dominoes as follows:
- 0–0: rows 1–2, column 2.
- 0–1: row 3, columns 6–7.
- 0–2: rows 1–2, column 4.
- 0–3: row 4, columns 2–3.
- 0–4: row 3, column 5 and row 4, column 5.
- 1–1: row 1, columns 5–6.
- 1–2: row 5, column 6 and row 4, column 6.
- 1–3: row 3, column 4 and row 4, column 4.
- 1–4: row 2, column 7 and row 1, column 7.
- 2–2: row 5, columns 2–3.
- 2–3: row 5, columns 5–4.
- 2–4: row 3, columns 1–2.
- 3–3: rows 1–2, column 3.
- 3–4: row 2, columns 6–5.
- 4–4: rows 4–5, column 7.
How to read the placements
A placement such as “rows 1–2, column 4” means the domino occupies two vertically adjacent squares in column 4. “Row 3, columns 1–2” means it occupies two horizontally adjacent squares in row 3. For placements written in reverse column order, such as “row 5, columns 5–4,” the two squares are adjacent; rotate the tile as needed to match the board.
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About the answers and the puzzle
Pips is a domino logic puzzle: use every tile to fill the board and satisfy each colored region’s condition. Depending on its clue, a region may require a specified total, matching values, different values, or values above or below a bound; tiles can be rotated. The March 13 layouts are reported by EnergyPips, an independent site that says it is not affiliated with or endorsed by The New York Times. EnergyPips describes the puzzle data as the Times’ own, attributes the Easy construction to Ian Livengood and the Medium and Hard constructions to Rodolfo Kurchan, and says Livengood edited the set. These placements are therefore an independent transcription of the puzzle data.
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