February 26, 2026 NYT Pips Hints and Answers

Stuck on today’s NYT Pips puzzle? Whether you’re tackling Easy, Medium, or Hard mode, this guide has all the hints and answers you need for February 26, 2026.

What Is NYT Pips?

NYT Pips is a domino-style puzzle game released by The New York Times in August 2025. It’s a single-player game where you place tiles horizontally or vertically to meet color-coded conditions. If you enjoy other NYT puzzles like Wordle or Connections, Pips is a great addition to your daily routine.

How to Play NYT Pips

Pips works like dominoes — tiles are placed vertically or horizontally and connect with each other. The key difference is that each colored region on the board has a specific condition that must be satisfied.

Here are the condition types you’ll encounter:

Number: All pips in the space must add up to that number.
Equal: Every domino half in the space must show the same number of pips.
Not Equal: Every domino half in the space must show a different number of pips.
Less Than: Every domino half must add up to less than the number shown.
Greater Than: Every domino half must add up to more than the number shown.

Spaces with no color coding have no conditions. It’s also common for only half a tile to sit inside a colored region.

Easy Mode Hints and Answers — February 26, 2026

Here are the solutions for the Easy difficulty:

Number (3): All pips must add up to 3. → 3-1, placed horizontally.
Equal (1): All halves must equal 1. → 1-4, placed horizontally; 3-1, placed horizontally.
Number (7): All pips must add up to 7. → 1-4, placed horizontally; 3-0, placed vertically.
Equal (1): All halves must equal 1. → 1-1, placed vertically.
Equal (0): All halves must equal 0. → 0-0, placed horizontally; 3-0, placed vertically.

Medium Mode Hints and Answers — February 26, 2026

Here are the solutions for Medium difficulty:

Number (10): All pips must add up to 10. → 5-5, placed horizontally; 5-4, placed horizontally.
Number (11): All pips must add up to 11. → 5-5, placed horizontally; 6-0, placed horizontally.
Number (8): All pips must add up to 8. → 5-4, placed horizontally; 0-4, placed horizontally.
Not Equal: Every half must be different. → 2-2, placed horizontally; 4-4, placed vertically; 0-0, placed vertically.
Greater Than (2): Every half must exceed 2. → 4-4, placed vertically.
Less Than (2): Every half must be below 2. → 0-0, placed vertically.

Hard Mode Hints and Answers — February 26, 2026

Hard mode has the most conditions to satisfy. Here’s the full breakdown:

Number (10): → 4-2, placed vertically; 6-0, placed horizontally.
Less Than (2): → 6-0, placed horizontally.
Number (6): → 3-3, placed vertically.
Equal (5): → 5-5, placed vertically; 5-1, placed horizontally.
Equal (2): → 2-6, placed vertically; 2-1, placed horizontally.
Number (2): → 2-1, placed horizontally; 1-4, placed vertically.
Number (12): → 2-6, placed vertically; 6-5, placed horizontally.
Number (9): → 6-5, placed horizontally; 1-4, placed vertically.
Equal (4): → 4-5, placed horizontally; 4-4, placed vertically.
Number (17): → 4-5, placed horizontally; 6-6, placed horizontally.
Number (4): → 4-0, placed horizontally.
Greater Than (4): → 5-3, placed vertically.
Number (4): → 5-3, placed vertically; 1-1, placed horizontally.
Number (1): → 4-0, placed horizontally; 0-0, placed vertically; 1-1, placed horizontally.

More NYT Puzzle Help

Looking for hints and answers to other daily puzzles? Check out these guides: