NYT Pips Hints and Answers for Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026: Easy, Medium and Hard Domino Placements

Wednesday’s Pips from The New York Times (NYT), for Oct. 28, 2026, has an Easy board by Ian Livengood and Medium and Hard boards by Rodolfo Kurchan; two hints for each come first, and every domino placement is at the end. The solutions come from the puzzle data the Times publishes for the game and were checked against every region’s rule. The boards go live at midnight in your time zone. Tuesday’s boards are in our Pips story for Oct. 27.

How Pips works

You place every domino so that each colored region meets its condition. A number means the pips in the region add up to it; = means every half shows the same value; ≠ means all are different; > and < set a total above or below a number; a region with no condition takes anything. Rows are counted from the top and columns from the left, so R2C5 is the second row, fifth column.

Wednesday’s Pips hints, Oct. 28, 2026

Easy (five dominoes: 0-0, 1-4, 6-4, 2-5, 1-1)

• Hint 1

  R4C4 and R4C5 must add up to 3. They hold a 1 and a 2, from the 1-4 and 2-5 dominoes.
• Hint 2

  R4C2 and R4C3 are equal. They hold the two 4s, from the 6-4 and 1-4 dominoes.

Medium (seven dominoes: 2-3, 6-0, 5-5, 0-4, 1-4, 5-3, 2-1)

• Hint 1

  R3C2 must be less than 1, so it is a blank. It is the 0 end of the 0-4 domino, with the 4 in R2C2.
• Hint 2

  R1C3, R2C3 and R2C4 are equal and all hold 5s. The 5-5 domino fills R2C3 and R2C4, and the 5-3 domino supplies R1C3.

Hard (sixteen dominoes on a six-by-six board)

• Hint 1

  R3C3 is the only cell with no condition, and only the 3-6 domino has a 6. R2C3 must add up to 3, so that domino hangs below it with its 3 in R2C3 and its 6 in R3C3.
• Hint 2

  five cells (R2C4, R2C6, R3C1, R4C3 and R5C6) must add up to 0, so each holds a blank. The five dominoes with a 0, from 0-1 to 0-5, cover them one each.

Solving tips

Look for single cells with a sum target: a cell that must add up to 3, 4 or 5 can only hold that value. An “equal” region shrinks your options fast once one value is known; with three cells, as in Wednesday’s Medium board, you need three matching halves, and a double can supply two of them. On the Hard board, no region has more than one cell, so each cell’s target is its value and the work is matching numbers to dominoes. Count the blanks: there are five 0 halves among the 16 dominoes.

More of Wednesday’s puzzles: Wordle hints and Connections hints. Track your solve times on our printable weekly calendar or the October 2026 calendar.

Wednesday’s Pips answers, Oct. 28, 2026 (spoilers)

Stop here if you want to solve the boards yourself.

The Easy and Hard boards have only one arrangement of values. On the Medium board the 1-4 domino can be flipped without breaking a rule; the values below are the arrangement that fits the placements in the puzzle data and every region’s condition.

Easy, by Ian Livengood. Regions: R1C1 and R2C1 total less than 3; R1C6 and R2C6 total less than 2; R4C2 and R4C3 are equal; R4C4 and R4C5 add up to 3; R3C2 and R3C5 take any value.

• 0-0: R1C6 = 0, R2C6 = 0
• 1-4: R4C4 = 1, R4C3 = 4
• 6-4: R3C2 = 6, R4C2 = 4
• 2-5: R4C5 = 2, R3C5 = 5
• 1-1: R1C1 = 1, R2C1 = 1

Medium, by Rodolfo Kurchan. Regions: R1C1, R1C2 and R2C2 add up to 8; R1C3, R2C3 and R2C4 are equal; R3C2 is less than 1; R3C3 and R4C3 add up to 5; R4C1 is more than 0; R4C4 adds up to 3; R2C1, R3C1 and R3C4 take any value.

• 2-3: R3C4 = 2, R4C4 = 3
• 6-0: R4C1 = 6, R3C1 = 0
• 5-5: R2C3 = 5, R2C4 = 5
• 0-4: R3C2 = 0, R2C2 = 4
• 1-4: R3C3 = 1, R4C3 = 4
• 5-3: R1C3 = 5, R1C2 = 3
• 2-1: R2C1 = 2, R1C1 = 1

Hard, by Rodolfo Kurchan. Every region is one cell. All but R3C3 have a sum target, which is the value the cell must hold, and R3C3 takes any value. The four corners of the six-by-six grid are not part of the board.

Row	C1	C2	C3	C4	C5	C6
R1	-	3	4	5	2	-
R2	4	1	3	0	4	0
R3	0	2	any (6)	5	4	2
R4	5	3	0	1	3	3
R5	1	2	2	3	5	0
R6	-	5	1	1	4	-

• 0-1: R4C3 = 0, R4C4 = 1
• 0-2: R2C6 = 0, R3C6 = 2
• 0-3: R5C6 = 0, R4C6 = 3
• 0-4: R3C1 = 0, R2C1 = 4
• 0-5: R2C4 = 0, R3C4 = 5
• 1-2: R6C3 = 1, R5C3 = 2
• 1-3: R2C2 = 1, R1C2 = 3
• 1-4: R6C4 = 1, R6C5 = 4
• 1-5: R5C1 = 1, R4C1 = 5
• 2-3: R3C2 = 2, R4C2 = 3
• 2-4: R1C5 = 2, R2C5 = 4
• 2-5: R5C2 = 2, R6C2 = 5
• 3-4: R4C5 = 3, R3C5 = 4
• 3-5: R5C4 = 3, R5C5 = 5
• 4-5: R1C3 = 4, R1C4 = 5
• 3-6: R2C3 = 3, R3C3 = 6

The Hard board uses all 15 dominoes that pair two different numbers from 0 to 5, plus the 3-6. Thursday’s boards arrive at midnight.