The Forbes article by Erik Kain provides a detailed walkthrough and solutions for the New York Times’ Pips puzzles for Monday, September 7, 2026. Pips is a puzzles game involving placing dominoes on a grid with colored areas, each governed by numeric or relational conditions such as equal to, not equal to, greater than, or less than. Players must fill the grid using all dominoes while respecting every condition to solve the puzzle. The article explains the mechanics of the game and the types of conditions that guide puzzle completion.

For the day’s trio of Pips puzzles, Kain presents step-by-step solutions for the Easy and Medium tiers, featuring images of the completed grids. The Medium puzzle amusingly resembles the Millennium Falcon, while the Hard puzzle spells out the letters “MIA,” which can have multiple playful meanings. In the Hard puzzle walkthrough, Kain recommends starting with dominoes that can satisfy the equalities in the orange-colored M section, particularly those involving sixes, to leverage the plentiful availability of that number.

As the walkthrough progresses, Kain details the placement of key dominoes across the puzzle’s colored groups, noting strategic moves such as positioning doubles in the pink and dark blue areas and satisfying inequality conditions in the green and blue sections. The final steps involve placing the last few dominoes into the blue not-equal group, which can be done in any order. Finished images illustrate the complete solutions, providing puzzle enthusiasts a clear guide to tackle the day’s puzzles.

Additionally, the article mentions the New York Times recently introduced a weekly bonus set of puzzle games for subscribers, with some puzzles available for free to non-subscribers. Kain also includes links to his interview with NYT Games chief Jonathan Knight and other puzzle-related content. The article invites readers to enjoy a relaxing Labor Day with Pips, highlighting both the challenge and fun of these numeric domino puzzles.