Pips - NYT Domino Puzzle Game - 9 May 2026

Added: 2026-05-11

[00:00:00]Hello, let's solve pips. We've got one by Ian two by Rodolfo today. Let's start with the easy puzzle as usual. Let's place some dominoes.

[00:00:07]Okay, what do we have? We need a two pointing to something else.

[00:00:11]We have three sets of twos. We need a less than two. That's a zero or one. It is a zero.

[00:00:15]Um If it's zero three, then there's only one thing that could go in here.

[00:00:21]Actually, it's true of zero fours as well.

[00:00:25]This could maybe be zero two that way.

[00:00:27]Actually, what's funny is we could also put it this way and this would be the same.

[00:00:32]They would ultimately be the same. Oh, this works.

[00:00:36]Yeah, okay. Let's try the medium.

[00:00:39]Okay, greater than three connecting to something that doesn't break one and three dominoes. Could be five to one.

[00:00:46]Could be three to zero. Could be four to zero. Could be four to one.

[00:00:50]Okay.

[00:00:51]So, this is going to need two zeros and a one.

[00:00:57]This greater than nine is going to need both digits four or higher.

[00:01:07]If one's a four, the other must be a six.

[00:01:11]So, what would be the only way to No, I was going to say the only way to achieve that would be four zero, but that's not true. It could be four zero or four one. So, that that it that isn't only one only one way to try that. Um if that if that is four one I mean this is annoying cuz it's a sort of if on top of an if, but if that were four one, this would then have to be something zero.

[00:01:33]It would have to be four zero actually.

[00:01:36]And then this would have to be a zero.

[00:01:39]Which would have to be zero one because otherwise we'd break the less than three. So, this is this is pretty specific guess, but it is very constrained, which makes it a bit less annoying.

[00:01:50]This would then have to be a zero or a one.

[00:01:53]Couldn't be a one cuz we We have a double an extra five for that. Then I am just following this through. I don't know, we'll see.

[00:01:59]This is a three.

[00:02:02]This would have to be a four.

[00:02:04]Oh, we need two fours.

[00:02:07]I don't think this works actually, because now we need two fours that both connect.

[00:02:12]Oh, wait. No, that's not No, yeah. We don't have any fours that connect to anything that's the same. So, 4 2, we need another two. 4 6, we need another six. We don't have either of those. So, the other option in this very constrained thing that I'm doing, in this very specific thing that I'm doing is instead of 4 1, what if it's 4 0?

[00:02:31]This is less constrained, because these two could be 0 1 in either order.

[00:02:36]This would then have to be a six.

[00:02:39]Actually, I could have started with that.

[00:02:41]That was the point that Oh, sorry. That was actually the reason I started with four, is because it means the other digit needs to be the sole six.

[00:02:48]So, this would be a four, but that goes into a void, so that's not very difficult.

[00:02:53]What are the remaining equivalences that we have? So, this needs to be a four. So, it could be two fours, two ones, two zeros, two threes. We have lots.

[00:03:06]What about this 0 1 connecting to less than three?

[00:03:13]Actually, this is This one is very constrained no matter what, regardless of the things I've done beforehand. This one cell connecting to this other cell.

[00:03:20]It's only zeros and ones connecting to each other. That's all it can be.

[00:03:25]Because the only other relevant digit is a two, but that connects to a four, which is too big for either region.

[00:03:31]Well, it's you know, So, this this always has to be this digit in some order or the other.

[00:03:38]That's interesting.

[00:03:45]But, it could be either way, annoyingly.

[00:03:50]If it's this way, then this would need to be this, I think. No, no, no, no, no, sorry.

[00:03:57]It would need to be the zero. It need to Oh, no, that doesn't work. This can't be the one. We'd need a zero here, and we don't have that anymore. So, this would have to be Okay, that's good. This is more constrained. So, this one then need to be this.

[00:04:08]Then this would need to be a zero or a one.

[00:04:12]Can't be this one cuz we don't have an extra five, so it'd have to be this zero.

[00:04:16]This would have to be a four.

[00:04:18]We're in the same Well, not the same problem. We're in a related problem to before. We can't have more fours. Okay, so this this doesn't work. We can't We can't put a four in the greater than nine. That was a really annoying thing to figure out just that one very constrained thing. I That was probably not not the correct way to start this. I think maybe this was the better way to start this.

[00:04:37]The way that these two must connect to each other.

[00:04:41]Is it possible to do it the other way?

[00:04:45]Is it ever possible to do the other way?

[00:04:47]This then needs to be greater than three connected to zero. That probably is possible, yes, because we haven't yet made it not possible.

[00:04:54]So, that can be 4 0.

[00:04:56]Then we'd need a zero connecting to something big. Oh, but that That doesn't work. That doesn't work because look, the only thing we have here is 0 3, and that's not big enough to make greater than nine. Okay. So, actually, it is this way. So, that That was This was the better place to start. I just went on a wild goose chase for no reason. I technically learned something, but at least it pointed me in this direction.

[00:05:15]So, this is greater than three connecting to Well, it can't be this, can it? Because this would then have to be Oh, no, it can because this could be 1 5.

[00:05:27]Okay, what about 4 1? Is this the one it can't be?

[00:05:32]Cuz then this needs to be a zero, which would have to be the 0 4, and we have learned this is not possible. We did try this.

[00:05:39]Did I prove that for real? I think I did. I think we know that this must be true.

[00:05:49]This can't be a five.

[00:05:51]So, it needs to be a zero.

[00:05:54]This would be three.

[00:05:55]This has to be six. Yes, this doesn't work. So, So, this can't be four zero.

[00:06:06]So, it's what?

[00:06:08]It's Oh, sorry. It can't be four one is what I meant to say. Is it It could be Oh, now I can't remember anymore. Sorry, this is horrible. Could it be five one?

[00:06:20]No.

[00:06:22]Can't be anything one, can it?

[00:06:26]Because then we're left with a zero and that doesn't work.

[00:06:29]So, this one needs to be a zero.

[00:06:31]So, it has to be the four zero. That's all it can be. So, this is a one.

[00:06:36]And it can't be I don't think it can be one four. I think we've sort of tried this and it doesn't work for other reasons. But, I don't know if we've tried it in this specific context.

[00:06:45]I can't remember if we have. I can't believe how many times I'm doing the same thing. This is embarrassing.

[00:06:50]Um Yeah, this this will fail again. It fails again. Okay. So, this is one five.

[00:06:58]Sorry. This was This is ridiculous how long this has taken me to accept these conclusions. So, that's fine. Finally, that's fine.

[00:07:05]Now, this is still a zero or a one.

[00:07:09]Now, could it be zero three?

[00:07:14]This would then be three four. We might end up in a similar problem as before, but maybe not this time.

[00:07:19]This can't be a four. This must be higher. So, this must be a six.

[00:07:22]Actually, this this works. This is fine.

[00:07:24]We've got enough fours.

[00:07:27]Okay, I'm sorry that took so long. Let's hope the heart isn't quite so bad, but it often is.

[00:07:32]Um Okay, we've got four something there. We have two sixes and 12. We've got lots of sixes though. Another six down here.

[00:07:43]This points up.

[00:07:45]Greater than eight. I can feel that this one's going to be hard. Oh, we need six of something. What do we have six of?

[00:07:53]Um ones? No.

[00:08:00]>> [clears throat] >> Fours? I think it might only be fours.

[00:08:15]I think it is fours.

[00:08:18]That's interesting if so.

[00:08:23]Because that's all of our fours, I believe. Which means the 10 must be double five.

[00:08:32]I think.

[00:08:35]Do we have five fours? Do Can we bridge these? Do we have double five? No.

[00:08:41]So actually, the fact that we don't have double five means five means we do have to we have to bridge that. So, this is five four. So, I think that's our first proper domino placed. And we don't have another five four, so this five points up into the six, which means this equivalent points across to itself. So, that's double zero, double one.

[00:09:00]Double No, it's not double four cuz we don't have any fours. So, this is double zero or double one.

[00:09:06]Which currently I don't think I can do much with.

[00:09:09]So, this six points up. So, we need a five and a four each connecting to things that together add up to six.

[00:09:18]My suspicion is that will not be difficult to achieve, but it might be.

[00:09:21]Could it be threes?

[00:09:24]Five three, do we have a four three? We do.

[00:09:27]That works. Actually, you know what?

[00:09:28]Maybe it is going to be constrained because it can't be four two cuz we don't have an extra fours. So, it could be five one.

[00:09:35]Do we have enough fives to do that? No, we don't. That's impossible cuz we need a double five, which we already don't know we have, or we need another four five, which we don't have. So, actually I think this is correct. I think this is correct.

[00:09:47]Um I wonder what we're going to put in this four-sized equivalence region.

[00:09:51]That's interesting.

[00:09:52]It could be zeros. If we put No, actually it couldn't.

[00:09:56]I was going to say it could be zeros if we put that up there, but we don't have any thing It's going to need It's going to need to be something that connects to a six because this needs to go up the double needs to go up at top. If it goes here, we'd need another double. Same same here. So, it goes up at top. So, one of them needs to connect to a six.

[00:10:11]So, what might that be? And we have very few double things in here. Is it just zeros and ones?

[00:10:18]I feel that this is broken. No, it's not.

[00:10:20]It's not because we have one six. Oops, where did that go? Here.

[00:10:24]Oh, that's funny. I ended up where a six was. Um good. Well, that means this needs to be the double zero, doesn't it?

[00:10:29]Because that was our only other option.

[00:10:31]So, then this connects down. So, now we need a one and a six whose connections add up to five. So, similar thing that we were doing before. So, it could be six two and one three.

[00:10:43]It could be It can't be one four. Also, it has to be that. So, it's either six two one three or six three one two, but we don't have that one.

[00:10:56]We don't have one two. So, I think it needs to be this.

[00:11:01]I think it needs to be six two one three, I think.

[00:11:07]All right, this is This is going better than I expected it to, but I'm worried I've made some faulty deduction along the way and that's going to come back to bite me. We only have one five left. And it can't point up into the fours, so it must point across into the twos. So, now this must be two four, which we have. It's still not breaking. It's not falling apart.

[00:11:25]We're getting there. This must be then double four. So, then we spend a four into the void, which is a zero appropriately enough. Please don't break. So now this We need to make a six out of two threes.

[00:11:38]Less than three is zero and double six certainly adds up to greater than eight.

[00:11:42]What a relief. Okay, I'm really pleased with that solve. I'm very pleased with how that went and it was weirdly more went much more smoothly than the medium.

[00:11:53]Great. Again, we've got what looks like a sort of capital and lower case V or something like that. Anyway, great.

[00:11:58]Those were the pips. Back tomorrow. Bye for now.