Pips November 17, 2025
Puzzle #92 · Monday
This is the pips puzzle for November 17, 2025 — all three boards, free to play, with no subscription and no account. The easy board has 8 squares, 4 dominoes and 3 regions — 2 exact-sum and 1 all-different regions.
By Sukie · Puzzle editor
Hints and answers for November 17, 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 "= 11" region. It spreads 11 pips across 4 squares, averaging 2.8 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 2 squares, averaging 0.5 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 "= 5" region. It spreads 5 pips across 4 squares, averaging 1.3 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
- = 12 — 3 squares that must total exactly 12. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 18, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- ≠ — 1 square that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
- = 11 — 4 squares that must total exactly 11. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 24, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
medium
- = 11 — 2 squares that must total exactly 11. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 12, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 1 — 2 squares that must total exactly 1. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 12, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 2 — 2 squares that must total exactly 2. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 12, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- ≠ — 1 square that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
- < 3 — 1 square totalling less than 3. A bound rather than a target, so it narrows without telling you a number.
- no rule — 6 squares with no rule at all — somewhere to put a value nothing else will take.
hard
- = 13 — 3 squares that must total exactly 13. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 18, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 5 — 4 squares that must total exactly 5. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 24, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- ≠ — 3 squares that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
- < 2 — 3 squares totalling less than 2. A bound rather than a target, so it narrows without telling you a number.
- < 5 — 3 squares totalling less than 5. A bound rather than a target, so it narrows without telling you a number.
- no rule — 4 squares with no rule at all — somewhere to put a value nothing else will take.
How this set compares with the rest of the archive
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 67% 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 5, 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.
The arithmetic check
Your tray carries 54 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 18 across 7 squares. That leaves 36 pips to absorb elsewhere. Running that subtraction before you place anything tells you whether the unconstrained squares are going to be a dumping ground or a tight squeeze.
The same check on the medium board: your tray carries 38 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 14 across 6 squares. That leaves 24 pips to absorb elsewhere. Running that subtraction before you place anything tells you whether the unconstrained squares are going to be a dumping ground or a tight squeeze.
What each rule demands here
The hard board uses 4 of the six possible region rules. What each one is actually demanding here:
- ≠
- Forbids any repeat across its 3 squares. Note that this constrains values, not tiles — two different dominoes both contributing a 4 still breaks it.
- any
- No constraint — these 4 squares just need covering. Fill them last; they absorb whatever the constrained regions reject.
- = 5
- Spreads exactly 5 pips over 4 squares, an average of 1.3 each. Anything that pushes the running total past 5 is already lost, so this is the region to count before you commit.
- < 2
- Caps every individual value below 2, which rules out roughly 71% of the pip values outright. It says nothing about the total.
The full badge vocabulary, including the ones this board happens not to use, is on the pips rules page.
Boundaries, not regions
There are 9 distinct region-to-region boundaries on this board, which is a lot for 6 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.
What goes wrong on this one
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 6 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.
Why the shape matters here
This is a distinctly irregular outline, filling only 67% of its 6×5 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.
About this date’s boards
- Is the November 17, 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 November 17, 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 4 doubles (5-5, 6-6, 0-0, 2-2). 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.
- What do the regions with no badge mean?
- 1 region on the hard board carry no rule at all. Those squares still have to be covered, but any values may sit there — so fill them last rather than first.
- 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.
The three boards in detail
easy
The easy board has 8 squares, 4 dominoes and 3 regions — 2 exact-sum and 1 all-different regions.
Start with the "= 11" region. It spreads 11 pips across 4 squares, averaging 2.8 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 less-than, 1 all-different and 1 unconstrained regions.
Start with the "= 1" region. It spreads 1 pips across 2 squares, averaging 0.5 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 6 regions — 2 exact-sum, 2 less-than, 1 all-different and 1 unconstrained regions.
Start with the "= 5" region. It spreads 5 pips across 4 squares, averaging 1.3 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
How this board was made
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 6 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 6 regions carry something other than an exact total.
Generation is seeded from the date, so November 17, 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.
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