Pips - NYT Domino Puzzle Game - 26 May 2026

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:00]Hello. Let's solve pips. We've got one by Ian, two by Ralpho today. We'll start with the easy puzzle as usual. Let's place some dominoes. Okay, we need 10 and two. So that is 64. No, it's not double five because we don't have two fives. So it's two Well, no, it's not two sixes. Sorry, it's 64. That's what I meant to say.

[00:00:19][clears throat] Um, so I don't think we can use the Well, no, maybe we could use the double six. Actually, it would have to go here because we don't have a zero.

[00:00:30]This would then have to be here.

[00:00:33]This would have to be Oh, this does work. Oh, weird. Okay. So, I tried this because I thought it was going to be the most difficult thing to achieve. But that's a good thing to try because either it's wrong because it's difficult to achieve or there's only a very narrow pathway to completing it in which case you quickly prove it correct if it if it is correct. So, that worked well. Um, let's try the medium.

[00:00:54]Greater than zero. That's funny. Okay.

[00:00:55]Greater than three, greater than three, less than three. H.

[00:01:00]So, something that we have three of here. I mean, in theory, no, actually, we couldn't put a double. We couldn't put a double two here because that would have to be a zero, right? So, so these are both reaching outward. So, we need three of something that connects to something, excuse me, something that we also have three of.

[00:01:18]And it couldn't be this can't be twos even though we have three of them because there's no way to get three twos in here cuz we only have exactly three twos. So one of our sets of three is going to be zero clearly. The other will be maybe this one will be two and this one will be zero. I think it has to be that.

[00:01:36]I think it's the only way to do it now.

[00:01:39]Right. This can't be d 0. So this is either 05 or 01. It'll probably be 0 1.

[00:01:48]Well, actually, if it were 01, this Oh, no. No. This wouldn't have to be double zero. This could be 05. This actually might work.

[00:01:58]And then 54 is greater than three. Four is greater than three. Yeah, this works.

[00:02:04]Okay, there we go. Let's try the hard.

[00:02:08]Okay, interesting looking thing here.

[00:02:12]Do we have a two three? We do.

[00:02:16]Oh, interesting. Well, no. Is it interesting? No. We could put a two zero going this way. Actually, we have a four here. What kinds of fours do we have that won't break that two? 4 six doesn't work. 43 doesn't work. 42 might work. 4 0 and 4 1. Okay, we have three possibilities. 42 would be the most difficult. We would need both zeros here, but we could do that even with the single domino, right? Okay. What's Okay, we need two sixes up there, two sixes down there, and we have exactly four sixes. So, one of these is a double six. And look, we need five of something down there.

[00:02:56]That makes me think this is going to Oops. That makes me think this is going to be difficult.

[00:03:01]Puts a lot of pressure on this on these two regions.

[00:03:06]Okay, what do we have? Five of zeros.

[00:03:16]um twos, but we also have twos being called for. Do we have seven twos? 1 2 3 4 five. We do have seven twos.

[00:03:29]Is there any way that could work?

[00:03:33][clears throat] Can we do 10 in a single domino? We can.

[00:03:39]So, in theory, we could do this.

[00:03:43]I don't know if that's interesting.

[00:03:46]Um, okay. Before I do that, let me see if we have any other candidates for this region. What about threes?

[00:03:59]No. What about fours?

[00:04:03]Yeah. Uh, no, not fours, cuz we need it needs to be something that has a double.

[00:04:07]Fours don't.

[00:04:09]I don't think fives are sufficient and six is definitely aren't. Okay, so this is zero or two. Now, I think zero is going to be difficult for different reasons, which is that we'd use all of our zeros, wouldn't we? 1 2 3 4 5. Yeah, then it's impossible to make this three- sized two region. We'd need at least one zero in there. So, I think this actually does need to be twos, which is intriguing because now we we will have used all of our twos for sure.

[00:04:37]So, do we have a 62?

[00:04:40]We do. So, this could go there. I suspect it will, which would mean this goes here, but I don't I don't know that. It's just it's just a thought.

[00:04:49]So, this is either six. If that's 64 in one, then that's double two here. Then, we'd need more twos coming out of here, which is fine because we do have twos connected to low things. Actually, it's tricky.

[00:05:06]No, wait. This doesn't all work. this three because if if this is a double six here, the three needs to come out.

[00:05:15]Okay, this can't all Okay, this can't work as I currently have it set up cuz if that three pokes out here, this would need to be a double two here.

[00:05:23]Okay, so there's a bit of give and take around this area. I don't know which of these I don't know which bits of this are correct, but it it indicates that they do sort of talk to each other. Do we have a 3 six? Can that ever point up?

[00:05:35]Actually, it cannot. Right. So the three always points across here.

[00:05:43]Just going to put this in here so I remember it's zeros.

[00:05:46]Sometimes I forget things. Um so right, this is 32 or 31.

[00:05:52]No, it can't be 3 0. We can't put any zeros in here because we're using them all, aren't we?

[00:05:59]Wait a second. This doesn't make any sense. That's not zeros. It's twos.

[00:06:04]Sorry, it's not zeros. It's twos. What am I doing?

[00:06:09]Was I Have I been putting zeros in there? I can't remember.

[00:06:13]Yikes. Okay, so this could be 300 if we have one. I don't remember if we do. We don't actually appear to. Okay, that's interesting.

[00:06:24]So, it's 32 or 31. Now, if it's 31, that's pretty tricky.

[00:06:37]What's the lowest connected to a six we have? This could in theory be here. No, it couldn't be. We can't waste any twos.

[00:06:45]So, if that is 32, we can't have the six pointing up at all, I don't think.

[00:06:54]What does that mean?

[00:06:57]Don't quite know what that means. This would then have to point across. could be with a two zero.

[00:07:04]This would point across which would have to be the 64. This would then have to be a zero four. I mean this this could work actually.

[00:07:12]What's this two? This two could point up to be a five in the 10.

[00:07:17]This would be a double six. I mean this might work. I could just be, you know, on wild goose chase here. But this this might work. This would be another double four.

[00:07:30]This could be 43. This would be 42. We'd have to put a zero here.

[00:07:40]No, it breaks. It breaks. Oh, that's such a shame. Where did we waste our two? Because we've wasted a two somewhere.

[00:07:50]Ah, right. It was over here. This was a waste.

[00:07:53]We can fix this.

[00:07:56]I should have noticed that before.

[00:08:00]Oh, wait. No, wait a second.

[00:08:07]Sorry.

[00:08:10]Was I building that for total wrong the whole time?

[00:08:17]Yeah, this is fine. This fixes it.

[00:08:18]Sorry, Ed. Sorry, that was a weird oversight. There we go. That actually worked. Okay. Sorry, that was a bit I was sort of doing that in my head a bit, but um and then I kind of messed up that four region over there and didn't think about the fact that we couldn't waste any twos, which also tripped me up slightly, but but that ended up working out. I mean, it was a bit speculative, but then it started to feel more correct as I kept putting things into it.

[00:08:37]Anyway, um I was short on time today, actually, so I'm glad glad I didn't end up spending ages and ages and ages trying to solve this in the most 100% logical way. There we go. Those are the pips. Back tomorrow. Bye for now.