Pips Answer for Thursday, February 26, 2026
Complete NYT Pips puzzle solution with interactive board and expert analysis for Easy, Medium, and Hard difficulty levels.
Reveal by clicking a domino below OR a cell on the board
Expert Puzzle Analysis
Deep insights from puzzle experts
Nyt Pips easy answer for 2026-02-26
Answer for 2026-02-26
Solving this set of Pips puzzles for February 26th was a fun journey through different logic styles. I started with the Easy puzzle by Ian Livengood. In these smaller grids, the biggest numbers are usually the best place to start.
I saw a region asking for a sum of 7 across two cells. Looking at my dominoes, [3,4] (from the 1,4 and 3,1 pool) was the only way to get there quickly. I placed the [1,1] and [0,0] doubles to satisfy the equals constraints, and the rest of the board just fell into place. Moving on to the
Nyt Pips medium answer for 2026-02-26
Answer for 2026-02-26
Medium puzzle by Rodolfo Kurchan, things got a bit more interesting with empty cells and inequalities. The sum of 11 at the top was a huge hint; you can only get that with a 5 and a 6.
Since I had a [5,5] and [6,0] domino, I had to be careful where the 6 went. The unequal region at [0,4], [1,4], and [1,5] acted like a Sudoku rule, preventing me from putting the same numbers next to each other. I used the sum of 10 as my anchor on the left side, which narrowed down the 5s.
Nyt Pips hard answer for 2026-02-26
Answer for 2026-02-26
Finally, the Hard puzzle was a real workout. With 16 dominoes and a 10x8 grid, I had to be very organized. I immediately looked for the most restrictive regions. The sum of 12 across two cells [2,5] and [3,5] had to be two 6s, so I placed the [6,6] domino there. Then I looked at the sum of 1 for four cells—that's incredibly low!
It meant three of those cells had to be 0 and one had to be 1. That helped me place the [0,0] and part of the [0,1] or [1,1] dominoes. The sum of 17 across three cells [5,3, 5,4, 5,5] was another big helper because you need high values like 6, 6, and 5 to get that high. I spent a lot of time toggling between the equals regions and the sums, slowly narrowing down which dominoes were still available. It felt like putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle where the pieces can change their values depending on how you flip them.
What I Learned
Today really reinforced how powerful the empty cells are. At first, they look like they just take up space, but they actually serve as walls that define where a domino can or cannot go. I also learned a tricky pattern in the Hard puzzle: when you have a sum of 4 for two cells and one of them is part of a greater-than-4 constraint, it forces the logic in a very specific direction.
I had to realize that the 'greater than' cell wasn't just any number, but had to be at least a 5, which then meant the sum constraint next to it had to be handled by a different domino entirely. Another cool thing was seeing how 'Equals' regions across three cells act as a bridge. If you know one number, you know all three, which creates a ripple effect across the board. It's much faster to fill those in than the sums, which usually have a few different combinations.