Have you ever stared at 16 seemingly random words on your screen, feeling absolutely stumped about how they connect? You’re not alone. The New York Times Connections puzzle has become the second most popular game on the platform, right behind Wordle, and it’s challenging players worldwide with its deceptively simple premise and mind-bending categories.
Here’s a startling fact: according to recent player statistics, the average solve rate hovers around 62-72% depending on the month, meaning nearly one-third of players fail to complete the puzzle daily. December 2024 proved particularly brutal, with some puzzles seeing success rates as low as 43%. But what if you could dramatically improve your odds and join the elite players who consistently crack these puzzles?
At tilesblog.com, we’ve analyzed hundreds of Connections games, studied winning patterns, and compiled expert strategies that can transform you from a frustrated guesser into a confident solver. Whether you’re a complete beginner or an experienced player looking to perfect your technique, this ultimate guide will equip you with everything you need to dominate NYT Connections daily.
What Makes NYT Connections So Addictively Challenging?
Before diving into winning strategies, let’s understand what you’re up against. Created by associate puzzle editor Wyna Liu, Connections launched in beta on June 12, 2023, and quickly captivated puzzle enthusiasts with its unique gameplay.
The Basic Rules: Simple Yet Deceptive
Every day at midnight, you’re presented with exactly 16 words arranged in a 4×4 grid. Your mission? Group these words into four categories of four words each, based on hidden connections or themes. Sounds straightforward, right? Here’s where it gets tricky:
You only get four mistakes. Make a fifth incorrect guess, and the game ends immediately. Each wrong selection counts against you, adding pressure to every decision. Unlike Wordle’s generous six attempts, Connections demands precision and strategic thinking from the start.
The categories are intentionally misleading. The initial word placement is designed to confuse you. Words that seem obviously related might belong to completely different groups. Remember the infamous puzzle featuring “SPONGE,” “BOB,” “SQUARE,” and “PANTS” all in the first row? Players naturally assumed they formed a SpongeBob SquarePants reference but none of them belonged together.
Multiple meanings create confusion. Many words have dual meanings or can fit into several categories, forcing you to think critically about which grouping is correct.
Decoding the Color-Coded Difficulty System
One of Connections’ most brilliant features is its color-coded difficulty ranking, which only reveals itself after you successfully identify a category:
Yellow (Easiest): These categories typically involve straightforward connections like synonyms, common categories (fruits, animals, colors), or obvious thematic groupings.
Green (Medium): Green categories require slightly more thought but remain based on familiar concepts and recognizable patterns.
Blue (Hard): Blue groups present greater challenges, often involving specific trivia, pop culture knowledge, or less obvious relationships.
Purple (Trickiest): Here’s where Connections truly tests your wit. Purple categories frequently rely on wordplay, abstract thinking, hidden patterns, compound words, or connections that aren’t immediately apparent. For example, one purple category grouped words that could follow “EASY ___” (STREET, MONEY, LISTENING, CHAIR).
Understanding this system helps you strategize your approach. According to puzzle experts, you can tackle Connections in two ways: solve from easiest to hardest (yellow through purple) or aim for the purple category first to eliminate the trickiest group early.
The Ultimate Winning Strategies: Your Roadmap to Daily Success
Strategy #1: Shuffle Before You Even Start
This might be the single most game-changing tip you’ll learn today. The puzzle editor deliberately arranges the initial word placement to mislead solvers. That tempting first row that seems to form an obvious pattern? It’s probably a trap.
Hit that shuffle button immediately and liberally throughout your solving process. Every time you feel stuck or uncertain, shuffle again. Many expert players report shuffling three times after each guess. This simple action:
- Breaks visual anchoring that tricks your brain
- Reveals patterns you missed in the original layout
- Provides fresh perspective when you’re stuck
- Helps you spot words positioned near potential matches
One player on Reddit shared: “The shuffle trick was one I picked up from this sub too. I feel like it’s made me better at it”. Another strategy is to shuffle until your suspected group of four words appears somewhat isolated in one area of the grid.
Strategy #2: Start With the Obvious (But Not TOO Obvious)
Begin by identifying the most straightforward category, but approach it cautiously. Scan all 16 words carefully before making any submissions. Look for:
- Clear synonym groups (words meaning the same thing)
- Category clusters (types of furniture, sports equipment, musical instruments)
- Obvious thematic connections (all names of cities, all types of weather)
However and this is critical if something seems too easy, reconsider your choice. Connections excels at creating red herrings that appear obvious but are intentionally misleading. For instance, seeing “CREDIT,” “DISCOVER,” and “VISA” together might scream “credit cards,” but the actual grouping could be entirely different.
According to CNET’s puzzle expert, you should verbalize the words mentally or aloud, pausing before and after each one to observe what associations your brain makes. This technique activates different cognitive pathways and can reveal hidden connections.
Strategy #3: Master the “One Away” Message
When you select four words and the game responds with “One away,” you’re close three of your four words are correct, but one doesn’t belong. This message might seem helpful, but it can actually lead you astray if you’re not careful.
The golden rule: Never chase a “one away” message immediately. Here’s why this approach works:
If you have five words that seem to belong to the same category, any incorrect guess of four from that group will return “one away” without giving you new information. You’re essentially guessing blind among combinations that all seem plausible.
Instead, when you receive “one away,” pivot completely. Try to solve a different category entirely. As you eliminate other groups, the correct combination often becomes obvious. One experienced player explains: “I immediately pivot and try to solve the rest first. If there’s 5 plausible options for a category, I need to whittle them down before trying again”.
You can also get “one away” multiple times if you keep substituting one correct answer for another correct answer in your selection. This happens when you’re mixing words from two different valid categories.
Strategy #4: Think Beyond Literal Meanings
Purple categories the trickiest ones rarely involve straightforward connections. They often require you to think about:
Word structure patterns: Do words share common prefixes, suffixes, or internal components? One memorable purple category included “JOURNEY” and “RUSH,” where the connection was that each word started with a rock band name.
Compound words: Can these words combine with another word to form common phrases? Look for words that might precede or follow a common term.
Homophones and wordplay: Are there words that sound alike or have multiple pronunciations?
Pop culture references: Movie titles, song names, character names, or famous phrases often appear in purple categories.
Hidden patterns: One particularly clever purple category featured words that could be spelled on an upside-down calculator: “eggshell,” “giggle,” “hello,” and the classic “boob”.
At tilesblog.com, we recommend spending extra time analyzing seemingly simple words for alternate meanings. The word “SPRING,” for example, could relate to seasons, water sources, coiled metal objects, or the verb meaning “to jump.”
Strategy #5: Use Process of Elimination Systematically
Process of elimination is your most powerful logical tool. Here’s how to apply it effectively:
Step 1: After solving one category, carefully examine the remaining 12 words. Note which themes are no longer possible and which patterns might emerge.
Step 2: Look for words that definitively don’t fit together. If you’re certain two words belong to different categories, this knowledge helps you avoid incorrect groupings.
Step 3: When stuck between two possible answers for a single word, consider which category feels more complete. Sometimes the word that “almost fits” in multiple groups is actually the key to a different category entirely.
Step 4: Track your mental eliminations. Some players find it helpful to jot down potential groupings on paper, especially for particularly challenging puzzles.
Strategy #6: Recognize Common Category Types
Through analyzing hundreds of puzzles, certain category patterns appear repeatedly:
Synonyms and Related Terms: Words with similar meanings (TECHNIQUE: approach, method, philosophy, school)
Common Phrases: Words that complete familiar expressions (things that can be “broken,” words that follow “easy ___”)
Shared Features or Attributes: Items that possess similar characteristics (things with holes, striped things, objects with slots)
Occupations, Animals, or Objects: Traditional category-based groupings
Pop Culture References: Character names, movie titles, song lyrics
Linguistic Patterns: Words with specific structures, rhymes, or shared components
Things That Go Together: Items commonly associated in real life (parts of jeans: pocket, buttons, fly, rivet)
Familiarizing yourself with these recurring patterns helps you spot connections faster when they appear.
Strategy #7: Beware the Most Dangerous Red Herrings
Red herrings are deliberately misleading groupings designed to trap you. Being aware of common tricks helps you avoid them:
The Anchoring Trap: You spot one obvious connection and force other words to fit around it, even when they don’t naturally belong. Solution: Before submitting, actively look for alternative groupings for each word.
Confirmation Bias: Once you form a hypothesis, you only seek evidence supporting it while ignoring contradictory information. Solution: Play devil’s advocate with your own ideas.
The First Row Temptation: That suspiciously perfect alignment in the initial grid layout. Solution: Shuffle immediately to break this visual trap.
Multiple Meanings: Words that genuinely fit into multiple categories. Solution: Consider which grouping feels most specific and complete.
One of the most memorable red herrings involved the Golden Girls character names: SOFIA (capital cities), BLANCHE (a cooking term), DOROTHY (fictional characters with dogs), and ROSE (flowers). Players who jumped at the obvious TV show connection fell into the trap.
Strategy #8: Leverage the “Say It Out Loud” Technique
This surprisingly effective method comes directly from puzzle experts at CNET. Speaking the words aloud—or even mentally—and pausing between each one allows your brain to make associations it might miss when reading silently.
Why does this work? Auditory processing activates different neural pathways than visual processing. When you hear words, your brain automatically begins forming associations based on how they sound, their rhythm, and their phonetic similarities. This can reveal:
- Homophones (words that sound alike)
- Rhyming patterns
- Alliteration or similar phonetic structures
- Phrases that “sound right” together
Try reading your suspected grouping aloud before submitting. Does it feel natural? Do the words flow together? Sometimes your intuition, activated through auditory processing, catches connections your analytical mind misses.
Strategy #9: Understand Category Color Patterns
Once you’ve solved one or two categories, the colors they reveal provide valuable strategic information:
If you’ve solved yellow and green first: You know the remaining two categories are the hardest (blue and purple). Prepare for more abstract thinking, wordplay, and non-obvious connections.
If you’ve solved blue and purple first: The remaining categories are the easiest. You might be overthinking things. Look for simpler, more straightforward connections.
If you have mixed colors: Gauge the remaining difficulty accordingly and adjust your analytical approach.
This awareness helps you calibrate your thinking and avoid the common mistake of overcomplicating easy categories or approaching difficult ones too simplistically.
Strategy #10: Take Your Time—There’s No Rush
Unlike many mobile games with timers, Connections gives you unlimited time to think. Don’t feel pressured to make quick guesses. The most common time to play is 9am, and most successful solvers spend 5-15 minutes on each puzzle.youtube
Benefits of patient play:
- You avoid impulsive mistakes that waste your limited four guesses
- Your brain has time to make unconscious connections
- You can thoroughly analyze each word for multiple meanings
- You reduce the anxiety that clouds judgment
Wyna Liu, the game’s creator, specifically advises: “When you start the game, go as long as you can without making a guess”. Confidence in your selection should be the trigger for submission, not time pressure.
Advanced Techniques: Level Up Your Connections Game
Breaking Down Complex Words
When encountering unfamiliar words or lengthy terms, break them into components. Ask yourself:
- Can this word be split into meaningful parts?
- Does it contain a smaller word within it?
- Could it be part of a compound word pattern?
For example, “RUSHMORE” once appeared in a puzzle where all words started with rock band names (RUSH). Without analyzing the word’s structure, this connection would be nearly impossible to spot.
Spotting Linguistic Patterns
Pay attention to structural similarities:
- Prefixes: Words starting with the same letters (all begin with “GO-“)
- Suffixes: Words ending similarly (all end with “-ING” or “-TION”)
- Word length: Sometimes same-length words form a category
- Vowel patterns: Words with only one vowel or specific vowel combinations
- Alphabetical tricks: Words that follow alphabetical patterns
These meta-linguistic categories appear frequently in purple groups and can be especially challenging because they ignore the words’ meanings entirely.
The Reverse Rainbow Strategy
For competitive players, there’s even a scoring system that rewards solving in “reverse rainbow order”—purple, blue, green, yellow. A perfect score of 30 requires:
- Solving all four categories in exactly four lines (no mistakes)
- Completing them in perfect descending difficulty order
While this approach adds challenge, it forces you to identify the most abstract category first, which can sometimes make the remaining categories easier to solve.
Learning from the Connections Bot
The New York Times offers a Connections Bot that analyzes your performance and identifies patterns in your play. Key insights the Bot provides:
- Whether you noticed or fell for red herrings
- Your pattern recognition strengths and weaknesses
- How your performance compares to other players
- Statistics on your solve rates and skill scores
Regular Bot analysis helps you identify your personal blind spots and improve strategically rather than relying solely on intuition.
Common Mistakes to Avoid (And How to Fix Them)
Mistake #1: Making Connections Too Quickly
The Problem: You spot four words that seem related and immediately submit without verifying.
The Solution: Before every submission, ask yourself: “Could any of these words fit into a different category?” Challenge your own assumptions.
Mistake #2: Overcomplicating Simple Categories
The Problem: You’re looking for deep hidden meanings when the connection is straightforward.
The Solution: Remember Occam’s Razor—the simplest explanation is often correct. If you see apple, banana, orange, and grape, it’s probably just “fruits,” not something more elaborate.
Mistake #3: Ignoring Word Context
The Problem: Focusing only on word meanings without considering how they might be used in phrases or contexts.
The Solution: Think about each word in multiple contexts—as part of phrases, in different grammatical forms, with various associated meanings.
Mistake #4: Not Using the Shuffle Button Enough
The Problem: Staying with the original word layout and falling victim to visual anchoring.
The Solution: Shuffle at least three times at the start and whenever you feel stuck. There’s no penalty for shuffling, so use it freely.
Mistake #5: Giving Up Too Early
The Problem: Assuming the puzzle is impossible when you can’t immediately see connections.
The Solution: Remember that every published puzzle has exactly one solution. If you’re stuck, step away briefly and return with fresh eyes. Often the breakthrough comes after a mental break.
The Psychology Behind Why Connections Is So Engaging
Understanding what makes this game captivating can actually improve your performance:
Cognitive Skill Development
Connections exercises multiple brain functions simultaneously:
- Pattern recognition: Identifying similarities and differences
- Critical thinking: Analyzing multiple possibilities logically
- Working memory: Keeping track of potential groupings
- Executive function: Resisting distractions and staying focused
- Cognitive flexibility: Switching between different mental frameworks
Research from neuroscience experts indicates that while these games may not prevent dementia, they do provide genuine cognitive exercise that keeps your mind sharp.
The Social Connection Factor
Connections has fostered a vibrant community of players who share their daily results on social media platforms. This social element adds layers of engagement:
- Friendly competition: Comparing results with friends and family
- Shared struggle: Commiserating over particularly difficult puzzles
- Achievement sharing: Celebrating perfect solves or impressive streaks
- Community learning: Discovering strategies from other players
At tilesblog.com, we’ve observed that players with social accountability—those who regularly share results with friends—tend to be more consistent and motivated in their daily play.
The Perfect Difficulty Balance
Connections succeeds because it occupies the “flow zone”—challenging enough to be engaging but not so difficult that it becomes frustrating. The color-coded difficulty system ensures that:
- Beginners can solve at least the easier categories, maintaining engagement
- Experts still find challenge in the purple categories
- Everyone experiences the satisfaction of gradual progress
Real Player Success Stories and Statistics
What the Numbers Tell Us
According to comprehensive statistical analysis of December 2024 puzzles:
- Average solve rate: 62.87%
- Highest solve rate: 93% (dubbed the “easiest puzzle”)
- Lowest solve rate: 43% (the “hardest puzzle”)
- Average skill score: 76.58 out of 100
These statistics reveal that even experienced players struggle regularly—this isn’t an easy game. If you’re solving 70-80% of puzzles, you’re performing above average.
Comparison with other months shows variations in difficulty:
- November 2024: 72% average solve rate
- October 2024: 70.42% average solve rate
- September 2024: 65.6% average solve rate
- December 2024: 62.87% average solve rate (notably harder)
The Human vs. AI Showdown
In a fascinating study, researchers tested five leading AI language models on over 400 Connections games. The results? Even the best-performing AI (Claude 3.5 Sonnet) could only fully solve 18% of puzzles.
In contrast:
- Average human players solve approximately 71% of puzzles
- Elite human players achieve 100% solve rates
- Top reasoning AI models only reach 62-71% success
This proves something remarkable: Connections requires uniquely human cognitive abilities—pattern recognition, cultural knowledge, and creative thinking—that even sophisticated AI struggles to replicate.
Building Your Daily Connections Habit
Creating a Sustainable Practice Routine
To maximize improvement, establish a consistent playing schedule:
Choose your optimal time: The most popular play time is 9am, but pick whenever your mind feels sharpest.
Warm up your brain: Consider starting with easier NYT games like The Mini crossword to activate your word-recognition circuits.
Set realistic goals: Don’t expect perfection. Even top players fail occasionally. Focus on gradual improvement.
Review your mistakes: Use the Connections Bot to analyze what went wrong in failed puzzles.
Learn from the archive: If you have an NYT Games subscription, explore past puzzles to practice pattern recognition.
Complementary Games to Sharpen Your Skills
At tilesblog.com, we recommend these companion games to build Connections-relevant skills:
Wordle: Enhances vocabulary and deductive reasoning
Spelling Bee: Expands your working vocabulary and pattern recognition
Strands: Practices theme identification and word searching
NYT Tiles: Develops visual pattern recognition that transfers to word patterns
Letter Boxed: Strengthens word association and creative thinking
Each game exercises slightly different cognitive muscles, but they all contribute to better Connections performance.
Month-by-Month Progress: Tracking Your Improvement
Setting Measurable Goals
Transform your Connections practice from casual entertainment into skill development:
Track your solve rate monthly: Aim for gradual improvement. An increase from 60% to 70% over three months represents significant progress.
Monitor your mistake patterns: Are you consistently using all four guesses, or are you solving more cleanly? Reducing mistakes indicates better pattern recognition.
Note your purple category success: This is the ultimate skill indicator. Improving your purple solve rate shows advanced pattern recognition.
Document breakthrough moments: When you recognize a new category type, note it. This builds your mental pattern library.
Creating Your Personal Strategy Toolkit
Based on your performance patterns, develop customized approaches:
If you struggle with purple categories: Focus extra practice on wordplay, compound words, and structural patterns. Study past purple categories to recognize common types.
If you struggle with yellow categories: You might be overthinking. Practice trusting simpler, more obvious connections.
If you use all four guesses frequently: Work on verification before submission. Spend 30 extra seconds checking alternative meanings for each word.
If you rarely complete puzzles: Focus first on getting even partial solves. Consistently solving 2-3 categories builds confidence and skills toward full completion.
The Future of Your Connections Journey
From Frustrated to Fluent
The difference between struggling players and confident solvers isn’t innate talent—it’s strategic approach and consistent practice. Every strategy in this guide comes from analyzing successful players, understanding game design, and applying cognitive science principles.
Remember that Wyna Liu, the puzzle creator, designs these challenges to be solvable but satisfying. There’s always a logical path to the solution, even when it initially seems impossible. Your job is to develop the skills and strategies to find that path consistently.
Why Connections Matters Beyond the Game
The skills you develop solving Connections transfer remarkably well to real-world challenges:
- Problem-solving: Breaking complex situations into manageable categories
- Pattern recognition: Spotting trends and relationships in data or situations
- Cognitive flexibility: Adapting your thinking when initial approaches fail
- Patience and persistence: Working through frustration to find solutions
- Creative thinking: Approaching problems from multiple angles
At tilesblog.com, we believe word games like Connections are more than entertainment—they’re mental workouts that keep your brain agile, engaged, and ready for whatever challenges life presents.
Your Next Steps to Connections Mastery
Armed with these comprehensive strategies, you’re ready to transform your Connections performance. Here’s your action plan:
Today: Apply the shuffle strategy and “say it out loud” technique to your next puzzle. These two changes alone can dramatically improve your solve rate.
This week: Focus on recognizing red herrings and avoiding the anchoring trap. Practice pivoting away from “one away” messages instead of chasing them.
This month: Build your mental library of common category types. Document patterns you notice in purple categories especially.
Long-term: Track your monthly solve rates and celebrate gradual improvement. Remember that even elite players occasionally fail—consistency matters more than perfection.
The journey from struggling solver to confident expert happens one puzzle at a time. With patience, practice, and the strategies outlined in this guide, you’ll find yourself not just completing Connections daily but genuinely enjoying the mental challenge it provides.
Conclusion: Your Connections Success Starts Now
Struggling with NYT Connections doesn’t mean you lack the skills—it often means you lack the strategy. The 16-word grid that once seemed impossible now holds clear patterns waiting to be discovered. By shuffling strategically, avoiding red herrings, leveraging the “one away” message correctly, thinking beyond literal meanings, and practicing consistently, you’ll join the ranks of successful daily solvers.
Remember the key insights: the game is designed to mislead you intentionally, purple categories require creative thinking, process of elimination is your most powerful tool, and there’s no substitute for patient analysis. At tilesblog.com, we’re committed to helping puzzle enthusiasts master not just Connections but all challenging word games through evidence-based strategies and expert insights.
So tomorrow morning when that fresh puzzle appears at midnight, you’ll approach it not with frustration but with confidence—armed with proven techniques that turn confusion into clarity. Your Connections winning streak starts now.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q1: How do I get better at identifying the purple category in NYT Connections?
Purple categories require different thinking than other groups. Focus on wordplay, compound words, structural patterns (prefixes/suffixes), and pop culture references rather than literal meanings. Study past purple categories to build your pattern recognition library. Often purple groups involve words that can combine with a common word or share hidden linguistic features. The more purple categories you encounter and analyze, the faster you’ll recognize their unique patterns.
Q2: What should I do when I keep getting “one away” messages?
The most important rule: don’t chase the “one away” message immediately. If you keep swapping one word for another in the same group, you’re likely mixing words from two valid categories. Instead, pivot completely and try solving a different category. As you eliminate other groups, the correct combination for your “one away” category usually becomes obvious. This strategy prevents wasting your limited four guesses on trial-and-error substitutions.
Q3: How often should I use the shuffle button in Connections?
Use the shuffle button liberally throughout the game—there’s no penalty for using it. Expert players recommend shuffling at least three times at the start to break the intentional misdirection in the original layout. Then shuffle again whenever you feel stuck, after each successful category solve, and any time you’re contemplating a guess you’re not confident about. Shuffling provides fresh visual perspectives that often reveal patterns your brain missed in previous arrangements.
Q4: Is it better to solve Connections from easiest to hardest or start with the purple category?
Both approaches work, depending on your style. Solving easiest to hardest (yellow through purple) builds confidence and eliminates obvious groups first, making trickier categories easier to spot through process of elimination. However, some players prefer tackling purple first because correctly identifying the hardest category early provides the most information about remaining words. Experiment with both methods to discover which feels more natural and successful for you.
Q5: Why am I better at Wordle than Connections?
Connections is statistically harder than Wordle, with lower average solve rates. Wordle relies on vocabulary and deductive logic within a narrow framework (five-letter words), while Connections demands broader skills including pattern recognition across multiple dimensions, cultural knowledge, creative thinking about word meanings, and resistance to intentional misdirection. Don’t feel discouraged—Connections engages different cognitive abilities than Wordle, and improving takes time and strategy development. Focus on the techniques in this guide, particularly shuffling and recognizing common category types, to bridge the difficulty gap.
