Pips August 11, 2026
Puzzle #359 · Tuesday
This is the pips puzzle for August 11, 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 less-than and 1 all-different regions.
By Sukie · Puzzle editor
Hints and answers for August 11, 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 "= 6" region. It spreads 6 pips across 2 squares, averaging 3.0 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 "= 4" region. It spreads 4 pips across 2 squares, averaging 2.0 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 "= 7" region. It spreads 7 pips across 3 squares, averaging 2.3 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
- = 5 — 1 square that must total exactly 5. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 6, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 6 — 2 squares that must total exactly 6. 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 differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
- < 5 — 3 squares totalling less than 5. A bound rather than a target, so it narrows without telling you a number.
medium
- = 4 — 2 squares that must total exactly 4. 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.
- = 11 — 3 squares that must total exactly 11. 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.
- ≠ — 2 squares 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
- = 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.
- = 7 — 3 squares that must total exactly 7. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 18, so that target rules out most fillings before you place anything.
- = 18 — 6 squares that must total exactly 18. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 36, 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.
- < 3 — 5 squares totalling less than 3. A bound rather than a target, so it narrows without telling you a number.
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 is divided into 5 regions against a typical 6.8. Fewer, larger regions mean each one takes longer to pin down but fewer tiles are shared between them.
Today's hard tray holds 5 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 this board hands you more forced placements than usual, provided you look for them before anything else.
The three boards in detail
easy
The easy board has 8 squares, 4 dominoes and 4 regions — 2 exact-sum, 1 less-than and 1 all-different regions.
Start with the "= 6" region. It spreads 6 pips across 2 squares, averaging 3.0 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 and 3 all-different regions.
Start with the "= 4" region. It spreads 4 pips across 2 squares, averaging 2.0 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 5 regions — 3 exact-sum, 1 less-than and 1 all-different regions.
Start with the "= 7" region. It spreads 7 pips across 3 squares, averaging 2.3 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
What your tray forces
The tray holds 5 doubles (3-3, 6-6, 5-5, 0-0, 2-2), and the board has 1 region 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.
What goes wrong on this one
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.
The all-different region is the one to watch. With 3 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.
Easy, medium and hard compared
These are three separate boards, not one board with hints removed, so playing all three on August 11, 2026 gives you three genuine attempts rather than three views of the same solution.
- easy
- 8 squares, 4 dominoes, 4 regions, 5 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 3 squares.
- hard
- 20 squares, 10 dominoes, 5 regions, 5 region boundaries. 40% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 6 squares.
Questions about this puzzle
- Is the August 11, 2026 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 11, 2026 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 5 doubles (3-3, 6-6, 5-5, 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.
- 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.
What each rule demands here
The hard board uses 3 of the six possible region rules. What each one is actually demanding here:
- = 18
- Spreads exactly 18 pips over 6 squares, an average of 3.0 each. Anything that pushes the running total past 18 is already lost, so this is the region to count before you commit.
- < 3
- Caps every individual value below 3, which rules out roughly 57% of the pip values outright. It says nothing about the total.
- ≠
- Forbids any repeat across its 3 squares. Note that this constrains values, not tiles — two different dominoes both contributing a 4 still breaks it.
The full badge vocabulary, including the ones this board happens not to use, is on the pips rules page.
How much the regions overlap
5 pairs of regions share a boundary, so a fair number of tiles will straddle. Whenever you satisfy a region, check the one next to it immediately rather than at the end.
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.
The arithmetic check
Your tray carries 57 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 37 across 12 squares. That leaves 20 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 44 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 24 across 8 squares. That leaves 20 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.
Why the shape matters here
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.
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