For Sunday, December 14, 2025, the New York Times Pips puzzle is #119. The safest verified opening moves are to begin with the smallest exact-sum region on each board: 2 on Easy, 7 on Medium, and 12 on Hard. The available text confirms these deductions and the board sizes, but not every domino placement, so the hints below do not claim a complete tile-by-tile solution.
December 14 Pips answers at a glance
Pips is a domino logic puzzle: fill every board square with domino halves while meeting the rule shown for each colored region. Here are the verified board sizes and best-supported starting deductions for puzzle #119.
| Level | Board size | Dominoes | Suggested opening deduction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Easy | 8 squares | 4 | Start with the four-square region that must total 2. |
| Medium | 14 squares | 7 | Start with the three-square region that must total 7. |
| Hard | 20 squares | 10 | Start with the six-square region that must total 12. |
These puzzle details and opening hints are listed in the EnergyPips archive for December 14, 2025.
How to use the Easy, Medium, and Hard hints
Easy: work from the four-square total of 2
All four squares in the highlighted region must add to exactly 2. Use that tight total to limit which pip values can occupy those squares, then check whether either half of a domino extends outside the region. The Easy board has 8 squares and 4 dominoes.
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Medium: begin with the three-square total of 7
The three squares in the target-7 region must sum to 7. Narrow the possible values there before placing tiles elsewhere; a domino crossing the region boundary contributes only the half inside the region. The Medium board has 14 squares and 7 dominoes.
Hard: begin with the six-square total of 12
The six-square region must total 12. The Hard board has 20 squares and 10 dominoes, with seven regions: three exact-sum regions, three less-than regions, and one all-different region. EnergyPips identifies 2-2 and 4-4 as doubles on this board, 5-4 as its heaviest tile, and 2-0 as its lightest. These facts narrow candidates but do not by themselves determine every tile position.
A community solving guide offers two additional partial deductions for Hard: the equality region is 3-3, and the less-than-1 region must contain 0. Treat those as corroborating clues rather than a full solution; the guide does not establish all placements. See the December 14 Hard solving guide.
What the region clues mean
- Exact sum: The pips in all squares of that region must add to the displayed target.
- Equal values: Every square in the region must have the same pip value.
- All different: No two values in the region may match.
- Less than: Each value must be below the stated bound.
Dominoes may cross colored-region boundaries. Evaluate each half according to the region containing that square, rather than treating the two halves as one indivisible value. For a concise overview of the mechanics, see Tom’s Guide to playing Pips.
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Not necessarily. EnergyPips notes that some looser boards can admit more than one valid arrangement, so its displayed arrangement should be understood as a valid answer unless uniqueness has been established for that board. The archive also says the date-seeded puzzle remains the same at its dated URL.
NerdsChalk published a dated guide with visual walkthroughs for all three levels, but the tile placements are not available in the page text captured for this answer. EnergyPips likewise presents its solution as a diagram rather than text-readable placements. For that reason, this guide gives verified opening deductions and Hard-board clues without claiming placements it cannot substantiate. The dated walkthrough is NerdsChalk’s December 14 Pips guide.
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