Pips April 10, 2026
Puzzle #236 · Friday
This is the pips puzzle for April 10, 2026 — 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 April 10, 2026
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 "= 7" region. It spreads 7 pips across 2 squares, averaging 3.5 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 "= 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.
hard board — reveal the solution
Start with the "= 5" region. It spreads 5 pips across 3 squares, averaging 1.7 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
- = 6 — 1 square that must total exactly 6. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 6, so this target sits at the extreme and forces every square in it.
- = 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.
- ≠ — 3 squares that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
medium
- = 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.
- = 9 — 3 squares that must total exactly 9. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 18, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 9 — 4 squares that must total exactly 9. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 24, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- > 5 — 1 square totalling more than 5. Like the less-than badge it constrains without pinning, which is why it is worth leaving until later.
- ≠ — 1 square that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
- ≠ — 3 squares that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
hard
- = 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.
- = 15 — 3 squares that must total exactly 15. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 18, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 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.
- < 1 — 1 square totalling less than 1. A bound rather than a target, so it narrows without telling you a number.
- < 4 — 2 squares totalling less than 4. A bound rather than a target, so it narrows without telling you a number.
- > 2 — 4 squares totalling more than 2. Like the less-than badge it constrains without pinning, which is why it is worth leaving until later.
- 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 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.
Today's hard tray holds 2 doubles against a typical 3.31. Doubles are the most constrained tiles you can be dealt — barred from every all-different region, and the only tile that fits wholly inside an all-equal one — so you get fewer of the free constraints doubles normally supply, and will have to find your footholds in the sums instead.
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.
Pip budget
Your tray carries 62 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 25 across 9 squares. That leaves 37 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 43 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 21 across 9 squares. That leaves 22 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 shape of the grid
This is a distinctly irregular outline, filling only 56% of its 6×6 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.
Reading the tray first
The tray holds 2 doubles (1-1, 6-6). Doubles contribute the same value twice, so they are the quickest way to overshoot an exact sum — place them where the arithmetic has room, not where it is tight.
The heaviest tile on the hard board is the 6-6 and the lightest is the 0-1. 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.
What goes wrong on this one
With 4 of 7 regions only loosely bounded, this board resists arithmetic and rewards elimination. Work out where each tile cannot go before deciding where it should.
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.
What each rule demands here
The hard board uses 4 of the six possible region rules. What each one is actually demanding here:
- 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 3 squares, an average of 1.7 each. Anything that pushes the running total past 5 is already lost, so this is the region to count before you commit.
- < 1
- Caps every individual value below 1, which rules out roughly 86% of the pip values outright. It says nothing about the total.
- > 2
- Requires every value above 2, leaving only 4 of the seven pip values legal in those 4 squares.
The full badge vocabulary, including the ones this board happens not to use, is on the pips rules page.
The difficulty ladder
These are three separate boards, not one board with hints removed, so playing all three on April 10, 2026 gives you three genuine attempts rather than three views of the same solution.
- easy
- 8 squares, 4 dominoes, 4 regions, 4 region boundaries. 50% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 3 squares.
- medium
- 14 squares, 7 dominoes, 6 regions, 7 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, 8 region boundaries. 57% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 4 squares.
What's on these boards
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 "= 7" region. It spreads 7 pips across 2 squares, averaging 3.5 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 greater-than and 2 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.
hard
The hard board has 20 squares, 10 dominoes and 7 regions — 3 exact-sum, 2 less-than, 1 greater-than and 1 unconstrained regions.
Start with the "= 5" region. It spreads 5 pips across 3 squares, averaging 1.7 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 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 April 10, 2026 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