Pips Answer for Monday, February 9, 2026
Complete NYT Pips puzzle solution with interactive board and expert analysis.
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Nyt Pips easy answer for 2026-02-09
Answer for 2026-02-09
Solving this set of Pips puzzles felt like a great brain workout for a Monday morning. I started with Ian Livengood's Easy grid. The first thing I noticed was the region at [3,0] that had to be greater than 4.
Looking at the available dominoes, I knew I either needed the 5 or the 6 in that spot. Since [3,0] was paired with [2,0] in the solution, and they had to help satisfy the sum of 8 in the nearby region, I realized the [6,0] domino was the perfect fit there. Once that fell into place, the 'less than 2' constraint at the top left was easy to fill with the [0,0] domino. Moving on to the
Nyt Pips medium answer for 2026-02-09
Answer for 2026-02-09
Medium puzzle, the anchor for me was the 'greater than 9' region in the bottom right. With two cells, you basically need a sum of 10, 11, or 12.
Since the [6,5] domino was available, it was a prime candidate, but I had to be careful how I placed the [0,6] and [6,3] dominoes first to make sure the 'equals' and 'sum of 2' regions didn't get blocked. The
Nyt Pips hard answer for 2026-02-09
Answer for 2026-02-09
Hard puzzle by Rodolfo Kurchan was the real meat of the day. That massive 7-cell 'unequal' region is a classic Pips trap. Because there are 7 cells and only 7 possible values in a standard domino set (0 through 6), I knew every single digit had to appear exactly once in that cluster.
I spent a good chunk of time cross-referencing that with the sum of 16 region at [4,4], [5,4], and [6,4]. To get a 16 out of three cells, you need big numbers like 6, 5, and 5 or 6, 6, and 4. I mapped out the [5,5] and [4,4] dominoes and realized they had to be split across these boundaries to make the math work. The 'sum of 0' regions are always a gift because they immediately tell you where the blanks (0s) go, which helped me narrow down the placement for the [0,0] and [1,0] dominoes.
What I Learned
Today really reinforced how important it is to look for 'constrained' regions first. In the Hard puzzle, that 'unequal' region with 7 cells is a huge hint because it effectively uses up one of every number.
I also found a cool pattern in the Medium puzzle where 'sum to 2' regions in a 5x4 grid often act as bottlenecks. If you place a domino with high pips there, you're stuck immediately. Another trick I used was looking at the 'empty' regions in the Easy puzzle; they don't contribute to sums, but they still take up a domino half, which helps narrow down where the remaining high-value dominoes like the [5,4] can actually live without breaking the math in other areas.