Pips Answer for Saturday, December 13, 2025
Complete NYT Pips puzzle solution with interactive board and expert analysis.
Click a domino below or a cell on the board to reveal
Expert Puzzle Analysis
Deep insights from puzzle experts
Nyt Pips easy answer for 2025-12-13
Answer for 2025-12-13
I dove into the December 13th Pips set starting with the Easy puzzle to get my bearings. The first thing that caught my eye was that lone sum region of 0 at (0,1).
Since you can't have negative pips, that cell had to be a 0, which immediately pointed me to the [6,0] domino. Once I placed that, the rest of the Easy grid fell into place like a path of breadcrumbs. Moving on to the
Nyt Pips medium answer for 2025-12-13
Answer for 2025-12-13
Medium puzzle, I shifted my focus to the 'equals' constraints at (2,2)-(2,3) and (4,1)-(4,2). These are my favorite clues because they drastically limit which ends of the dominoes can sit there.
I noticed the [3,3] and [1,1] doubles in my tray and saved them for these spots. The sum of 2 at (1,5)-(2,5) was a great anchor on the right side of the board; with the dominoes I had left, it narrowed down the orientation of the [1,1] and [0,6] pieces. The
Nyt Pips hard answer for 2025-12-13
Answer for 2025-12-13
Hard puzzle was a different beast altogether. Rodolfo Kurchan set up some tricky three-cell equality regions. I spent a good chunk of time looking at the (0,0), (0,1), (1,1) cluster.
To make three cells equal when they span across different dominoes, you almost always need to utilize your doubles or very specific matching pairs. I matched the [1,1] and [3,1] dominoes strategically to satisfy that top-left corner. The 'greater than' and 'less than' clues acted as the final guardrails. For instance, the 'greater than 3' at (3,2) combined with the equality region below it forced the [4,4] and [4,6] into a very specific configuration that finally locked the whole grid down.
What I Learned
This puzzle taught me to pay much closer attention to how 'empty' cells function as negative space. In the Medium puzzle, the empty cell at (0,3) actually restricted where the [0,6] and [3,4] could go because it limited the available adjacent squares. I also realized that in the Hard puzzles, equality regions that involve three or more cells are the most powerful starting points.
They act as the 'corner pieces' of a jigsaw puzzle. If you can solve a three-cell equal region, you usually solve the orientation of at least two dominoes simultaneously. Another neat trick I picked up today was using the 'sum' targets to disqualify dominoes early; if a sum is 11 and you only have one domino with a 6 and a 5, that piece is essentially spoken for immediately.