Pips September 23, 2026
Puzzle #402 · Wednesday
This is the pips puzzle for September 23, 2026 — 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 less-than regions.
By Sukie · Puzzle editor
Hints and answers for September 23, 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 3 squares, averaging 2.3 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 "= 2" region. It spreads 2 pips across 2 squares, 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 "= 11" region. It spreads 11 pips across 3 squares, averaging 3.7 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
- = 8 — 2 squares that must total exactly 8. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 12, 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.
- < 5 — 3 squares totalling less than 5. A bound rather than a target, so it narrows without telling you a number.
medium
- = 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.
- = 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.
- = 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.
- > 4 — 1 square totalling more than 4. Like the less-than badge it constrains without pinning, which is why it is worth leaving until later.
- > 0 — 1 square totalling more than 0. 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.
hard
- = 18 — 3 squares that must total exactly 18. The range a region this size can hold is 0 to 18, so this target sits at the extreme and forces every square in it.
- = 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.
- = 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.
- = — 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.
- ≠ — 2 squares that must all differ. With only seven pip values in existence, no double can sit wholly inside it.
- < 5 — 5 squares totalling less than 5. 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 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 11, against a median of 8 across every board published here. A target that high forces large values together, which narrows the options just as sharply from the other end.
Boundaries, not regions
There are 11 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.
Reading the constraints
The hard board uses 4 of the six possible region rules. What each one is actually demanding here:
- = 18
- Spreads exactly 18 pips over 3 squares, an average of 6.0 each. Anything that pushes the running total past 18 is already lost, so this is the region to count before you commit.
- ≠
- Forbids any repeat across its 2 squares. Note that this constrains values, not tiles — two different dominoes both contributing a 4 still breaks it.
- < 5
- Caps every individual value below 5, which rules out roughly 29% of the pip values outright. It says nothing about the total.
- =
- Forces all 2 squares to show the same value. With distinct tiles in your tray, only a narrow set of combinations can supply that.
The full badge vocabulary, including the ones this board happens not to use, is on the pips rules page.
Reading the tray first
The tray holds 4 doubles (1-1, 6-6, 2-2, 5-5), and the board has 3 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 1-1. 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.
Why the shape matters here
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.
The usual dead end
The all-different region is the one to watch. With 5 squares in the widest region on this board, an all-different rule quietly forbids far more arrangements than it looks like it does.
With 3 exact sums on the board, there is usually a square that only one tile in your tray can legally fill. Find that square first and the rest tends to cascade.
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's on these boards
easy
The easy board has 8 squares, 4 dominoes and 3 regions — 2 exact-sum and 1 less-than 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.
medium
The medium board has 14 squares, 7 dominoes and 6 regions — 3 exact-sum and 3 greater-than regions.
Start with the "= 2" region. It spreads 2 pips across 2 squares, 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, 1 less-than, 1 all-equal and 2 all-different regions.
Start with the "= 11" region. It spreads 11 pips across 3 squares, averaging 3.7 per square, so the halves that can legally sit there are limited before you have placed anything at all.
The arithmetic check
Your tray carries 70 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 41 across 9 squares. That leaves 29 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 45 pips in total, and the exact-sum regions between them demand 23 across 8 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.
How the three boards differ
These are three separate boards, not one board with hints removed, so playing all three on September 23, 2026 gives you three genuine attempts rather than three views of the same solution.
- easy
- 8 squares, 4 dominoes, 3 regions, 2 region boundaries. 33% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 3 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, 11 region boundaries. 57% of its regions carry something other than an exact total, and the widest region spans 5 squares.
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