Pips Answer for Friday, March 13, 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 2026-03-13
Answer for 2026-03-13
First off, let me say today's Pips was a blast. I always look forward to Ian Livengood's designs, and having Rodolfo Kurchan on the medium and hard ones made for a perfect progression of difficulty. For the Easy puzzle, the first thing I spotted was that all the dominoes were doubles—meaning 2-2, 3-3, 4-4, 5-5, and 6-6. That is a huge hint because it means every domino you place puts the same number in two adjacent cells. I jumped straight to the sum of 11 in the top left.
The only way to get 11 with those doubles is to have one cell be a 5 and the other a 6. This meant the dominoes at (0,0)-(1,0) and (0,1)-(0,2) had to be the 5s and 6s. I quickly realized that if (0,0) was 6 and (0,1) was 5, then (1,0) also had to be 6. This allowed me to solve the sum of 8 by placing a 2 at (2,0), which identified the 2-2 domino. The rest of the board fell into place like a chain reaction. Moving to the
Nyt Pips medium answer for 2026-03-13
Answer for 2026-03-13
Medium puzzle, Rodolfo gave us a more traditional set. I looked for the most restrictive spots first. That sum of 1 at the top was a total gift—it has to be a 0 and a 1.
Then I pivoted to the 9 sums. Since the highest pip in this set was a 6 (from the 2-6 domino), a sum of 9 is actually quite limited. I worked my way around the edges, carefully tracking which dominoes I had already 'spent' so I didn't accidentally use the 4-3 twice. The
Nyt Pips hard answer for 2026-03-13
Answer for 2026-03-13
Hard puzzle was the real test. With 15 dominoes, it looks scary, but those single-cell regions with targets like 0, 1, and 2 are your best friends. It felt like a logic grid.
I went through and marked every cell that had a sum constraint of 0 or 1. By the time I got to the middle of the board, most of the high-value dominoes like the 4-4 and 3-4 were the only ones left that could fit the remaining gaps. The final move was placing the 3-6/4-6 connection in the bottom right corner to close it all out.
What I Learned
I learned that when a puzzle uses only double dominoes, the strategy completely flips. Usually, you think about how two different numbers on one tile can satisfy two different regions. But with all doubles, you're looking at how a single number is 'projected' into two different areas.
It makes the sum constraints much tighter. Also, in the Medium puzzle, I realized how important it is to look for 'bottleneck' numbers. If you only have one domino with a 6 on it, wherever that 6 goes determines a huge part of the board. In the Hard puzzle, I noticed that 'empty' regions aren't just dead space—they often act as the 'bridge' between two high-value sum regions, and solving the sums around them usually reveals what they have to be by default.