NYT Pips Answers & Hints for August 18, 2026

Edited by Ian Livengood • Solved by WordFinder Tips

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Table of Contents

• Puzzle Overview
• Solving Strategy
• Easy Mode Solutions
• Medium Mode Solutions
• Hard Mode Solutions
• Frequently Asked Questions

Puzzle Overview

Today’s NYT Pips puzzles span three difficulty levels, each designed by either Ian Livengood or Rodolfo Kurchan. The easy and medium puzzles use sum and comparison constraints, while the hard mode introduces a wider grid with more complex region rules. All three require careful domino placement to satisfy numerical targets.

Quick Puzzle Breakdown (No Spoilers)

• Easy mode: 5 dominoes to place across 6 regions, all sum constraints
• Medium mode: 8 dominoes covering mixed constraint types (sum, empty, equals, greater-than)
• Hard mode: 16 dominoes on a 9×7 grid with 20 different regions, including empty and equals constraints

Solving Strategy for Today’s Pips

Starting with Tight Constraints

Today’s puzzles reward targeting single-cell regions and low sum targets first. In easy mode, the cell at (0,0) must sum to exactly 1, meaning it needs the domino [0,1]. Similarly, regions that sum to 1 elsewhere force specific placements. Medium and hard modes follow the same logic: empty regions act as wildcards, while sum targets of 1 or 11 are highly constraining.

What Makes Today Tricky

The hard puzzle’s main challenge is scale and interconnection. With 16 dominoes filling a larger grid, a single wrong placement cascades through multiple regions. The equals constraints (where two regions must have the same sum) add an extra layer of deduction. You’ll need to work through sum targets methodically and use equals constraints to cross-check your work.

Easy Mode Solutions

Easy mode uses straightforward sum constraints. The solution involves five dominoes placed to satisfy six regions.

Medium Mode Solutions

Medium mode combines sum targets, empty regions, less-than, greater-than, and equals constraints. The puzzle requires more careful tracking of which dominoes satisfy multiple constraint types.

Hard Mode Solutions

Hard mode is a 9×7 grid with 16 dominoes and 20 distinct regions. This puzzle tests your ability to chain constraints together and verify equals conditions across the board. The first five placements anchor key constraints.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Why does the easy mode have regions that sum to 1? A sum of 1 can only be satisfied by [0,1], the domino with sides totaling one. This creates a forcing constraint that makes early placements obvious and teaches core logic.
• What’s the difference between an empty region and a sum region? Empty regions have no numerical constraint and accept any domino. Sum regions require the two numbers on the domino to add up to a specific target. Empty regions are often solved last, after more constrained areas force certain dominoes to specific locations.
• How do equals constraints work in medium and hard modes? An equals constraint means two different regions must have the same sum. For example, if region A sums to 5 and you see an equals constraint, the other region it connects to must also sum to 5. Use this to cross-check your placement logic.

Final Thoughts

Today’s Pips puzzles showcase how constraint types scale in complexity. The easy mode teaches sum logic, medium adds condition variety, and hard pushes spatial reasoning. According to WordFinder Tips experts, the key to hard mode is working backward from equals constraints and verifying your placements incrementally rather than placing all dominoes at once.

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