Pips August 19, 2025
Puzzle #2 · Tuesday
This is the pips puzzle for August 19, 2025 — all three boards, free to play, with no subscription and no account. The easy board has 8 squares, 4 dominoes and 4 regions — 2 exact-sum, 1 all-equal and 1 all-different regions.
By Sukie · Puzzle editor
Hints and answers for August 19, 2025
Stuck? Take it in stages. A nudge costs less than the full answer, and the answer is here if you want it — each diagram below is the verified solution our generator built this board from, using tiles drawn from the standard double-six domino set. On the looser boards other valid arrangements can exist too; any filling that covers every square and satisfies every region counts as solved.
easy board — reveal the solution
Start with the "= 3" region. It spreads 3 pips across 2 squares, averaging 1.5 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
medium board — reveal the solution
Start with the "= 1" region. It spreads 1 pips across 1 square, averaging 1.0 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
hard board — reveal the solution
Start with the "= 2" region. It spreads 2 pips across 4 squares, averaging 0.5 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
Where the information is on today's boards
Each board's regions, ordered from most constraining to least — which is the order worth working them in. Nothing here gives a value away, only how much each region can tell you before the rest of the board does.
easy
- = 3 — 2 squares that must total exactly 3. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 12, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 7 — 2 squares that must total exactly 7. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 12, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = — 2 squares that must all show the same value. Only a double can lie wholly inside it, and the whole region resolves to one number — so your only real decision is which.
- ≠ — 2 squares that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
medium
- = 1 — 1 square that must total exactly 1. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 6, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = — 2 squares that must all show the same value. Only a double can lie wholly inside it, and the whole region resolves to one number — so your only real decision is which.
- = 5 — 3 squares that must total exactly 5. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 18, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 21 — 4 squares that must total exactly 21. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 24, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- ≠ — 2 squares that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
- ≠ — 2 squares that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
hard
- = 10 — 2 squares that must total exactly 10. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 12, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = — 2 squares that must all show the same value. Only a double can lie wholly inside it, and the whole region resolves to one number — so your only real decision is which.
- = 10 — 3 squares that must total exactly 10. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 18, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 2 — 4 squares that must total exactly 2. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 24, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- ≠ — 2 squares that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
- > 3 — 3 squares totalling more than 3. Like the less-than badge it constrains without pinning, which is why it is worth leaving until later.
- > 1 — 4 squares totalling more than 1. Like the less-than badge it constrains without pinning, which is why it is worth leaving until later.
How this set compares with the rest of the archive
The easy board runs 50% loose regions against a typical 38%, so it is vaguer than most — fewer regions hand you a number outright and more of the work is deciding where tiles cannot go.
The medium board runs 50% loose regions against a typical 40%, so it is vaguer than most — fewer regions hand you a number outright and more of the work is deciding where tiles cannot go.
The hard board runs 57% loose regions against a typical 44%, so it is vaguer than most — fewer regions hand you a number outright and more of the work is deciding where tiles cannot go.
Its tightest sum target is 2, against a median of 8 across every board published here. A target that low forces blanks and ones into a small space, and is almost always the quickest way into the board.
Reading the constraints
The hard board uses 4 of the six possible region rules. What each one is actually demanding here:
- ≠
- Forbids any repeat across its 2 squares. Note that this constrains values, not tiles — two different dominoes both contributing a 4 still breaks it.
- =
- Forces all 2 squares to show the same value. With distinct tiles in your tray, only a narrow set of combinations can supply that.
- > 1
- Requires every value above 1, leaving only 5 of the seven pip values legal in those 4 squares.
- = 10
- Spreads exactly 10 pips over 3 squares, an average of 3.3 each. Anything that pushes the running total past 10 is already lost, so this is the region to count before you commit.
The full badge vocabulary, including the ones this board happens not to use, is on the pips rules page.
Easy, medium and hard compared
These are three separate boards, not one board with hints removed, so playing all three on August 19, 2025 gives you three genuine attempts rather than three views of the same solution.
- easy
- 8 squares, 4 dominoes, 4 regions, 3 region boundaries. 50% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 2 squares.
- medium
- 14 squares, 7 dominoes, 6 regions, 6 region boundaries. 50% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 4 squares.
- hard
- 20 squares, 10 dominoes, 7 regions, 9 region boundaries. 57% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 4 squares.
The tiles you are dealt
The tray holds 3 doubles (4-4, 0-0, 6-6), and the board has 2 regions governed by an equality rule. A double can never sit entirely inside an all-different region, so those tiles have to straddle a boundary — which usually pins them down before anything else on the board.
The heaviest tile on the hard board is the 6-6 and the lightest is the 0-0. Those two are worth locating first: the heavy tile can only go where a sum has room, and the light one is often the only thing that fits a tight region.
Where the regions meet
There are 9 distinct region-to-region boundaries on this board, which is a lot for 7 regions. Almost every tile you place is going to land half in one region and half in another, so treating regions as separate sub-puzzles will not work here — think in pairs.
A domino can straddle two regions, and each half only has to satisfy the region it lands in. That is the single most common misreading of the format — people assume a tile must sit inside one region, which makes perfectly solvable boards look impossible. The rules page works through it with examples.
Questions about this puzzle
- Is the August 19, 2025 pips puzzle free to play?
- Yes. All three boards for this date are free, with no account and no subscription, and they stay available permanently.
- How many dominoes does the August 19, 2025 hard board use?
- 10 dominoes across 20 squares. Every tile in the tray must be used, and the count is always exactly half the number of squares.
- Where do the doubles go on this board?
- This tray holds 3 doubles (4-4, 0-0, 6-6). A double puts the same value on both of its squares, so it cannot sit inside an all-different region and it is the fastest way to overshoot a tight sum. Place them where the arithmetic has slack.
- Can I replay this puzzle later?
- Yes. Boards are generated deterministically from the date, so this URL always shows this exact puzzle. Your progress saves in your own browser, and Reset clears it whenever you want a fresh attempt.
Reading the outline
This is a distinctly irregular outline, filling only 67% of its 5×6 bounding box. Narrow arms are the danger: a square at the end of a one-wide corridor has exactly one possible partner, so if that partner gets covered the board becomes unsolvable regardless of what else you do.
Where this puzzle comes from
This board was not hand-designed and it was not copied from anywhere. The generator laid down a valid arrangement of 10 dominoes first, then divided the 20 squares into 7 regions and derived each region's rule from the values that had already landed in it. Because the solution existed before the constraints did, this board provably has one.
It was then loosened: rules were swapped for weaker ones, one at a time, keeping each swap only while the number of valid arrangements stayed inside the bound for this difficulty. That is why 4 of the hard board's 7 regions carry something other than an exact total.
Generation is seeded from the date, so August 19, 2025 produces this exact board on every device, permanently. Sharing this link always shows the same puzzle. More on the process in our editorial policy.
The three boards in detail
easy
The easy board has 8 squares, 4 dominoes and 4 regions — 2 exact-sum, 1 all-equal and 1 all-different regions.
Start with the "= 3" region. It spreads 3 pips across 2 squares, averaging 1.5 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
medium
The medium board has 14 squares, 7 dominoes and 6 regions — 3 exact-sum, 1 all-equal and 2 all-different regions.
Start with the "= 1" region. It spreads 1 pips across 1 square, averaging 1.0 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
hard
The hard board has 20 squares, 10 dominoes and 7 regions — 3 exact-sum, 2 greater-than, 1 all-equal and 1 all-different regions.
Start with the "= 2" region. It spreads 2 pips across 4 squares, averaging 0.5 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
Where people get stuck
The all-different region is the one to watch. With 4 squares in the widest region on this board, an all-different rule quietly forbids far more arrangements than it looks like it does.
The all-different region is the one to watch. With 4 squares in the widest region on this board, an all-different rule quietly forbids far more arrangements than it looks like it does.
If you have genuinely stalled, undo back to the last tile you were confident about rather than reshuffling everything. Most dead ends on a board this size trace to one early placement made on a guess, and everything after it inherits the mistake.
More pips
- Pips archive — every date since the archive opened.
- Pips rules — what each region badge means.
- Practice mode — a fresh board whenever you want one.
- Today's pips puzzle