Youll see a game board with 16 tiles, each with one word or phrase.

Your job is to select a group of four tiles that have something in common.

Select four items and hit the Submit button.

If you guessed correctly, the category and color will be revealed.

(Yellow is easiest, followed by green, then blue, then purple.)

If your guess was incorrect, youll get a chance to hit it one more time.

You win when youve correctly identified all four groups.

But if you make four mistakes before you finish, the game ends and the answers are revealed.

Expect to see overlapping groups.

So dont hit submit until youve confirmed that your group of four containsonlythose four things.

If youre stuck, another strategy is to look at the words that seem to havenoconnection to the others.

Another way to win when youre stuck is, obviously, to read a few helpful hints.

Below, Ill give you some oblique hints at todays Connections answers.

And further down the page, Ill reveal the themes and the answers.

Scroll slowly and take just the hints you need!

Does todays Connections game require any special knowledge?

The wordsoriginslie in a wrestling move in which you would trip the other person.

GAMBIT is also the name of thecard-playing X-man.

Its also the name of the town in New York where the festival was originally supposed to be held.

WOODSTOCK is also the name of the little yellow bird that is Snoopys friend in the Peanuts comics.

Green category - These relate to a game.

Blue category - These relate toanotherset of childhood characters.

Purple category - Youll love these.

Does todays Connections game involve any wordplay?

Yes, theres a fill-in-the-blank category.

Ready to hear the answers?

Keep scrolling if you want a little more help.

BEWARE: Spoilers follow for todays Connections puzzle!

Were about to give away some of the answers.

Scroll slowly if you dont want the whole thing spoiled.

(The full solution is a bit further down.)

What are the ambiguous words in todays Connections?

Its also the name of a character in the Peanuts cartoon, which is more relevant here.

What are the categories in todays Connections?

I give them all away below.

What are the yellow words in todays Connections?

The yellow grouping is considered to be the most straightforward.

What are the green words in todays Connections?

The green grouping is supposed to be the second-easiest.

What are the blue words in todays Connections?

The blue grouping is the second-hardest.

What are the purple words in todays Connections?

The purple grouping is considered to be the hardest.

How I solved todays Connections

I was stumped on this one for a good while.

I saw the five Peanuts characters, but didnt have a way to rule one out.

I saw chess words: QUEENs GAMBIT, MATE, and BISHOP.

I saw NEW YORK and GIANTS, but had already ruled out WOODSTOCK as a partner for the state.

Maybe GIANT, PRINCESS, and WOLF were part of a fairy tale lineup.

QUEEN plays ROCK N ROLL.

I saw X-Men characters in GAMBIT and WOLFerine.

(Not quite, but close.)

And who is this LUCY?

Shes not the Peanuts character, so is she Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds?

It tookminutesof staring at the screen, but I got it!

And that left the chess terms, which turned out to be, yes, CHESS TERMS.

The better Connections puzzles have a clear theme to all the categories.

Instead of chessterms, why not chesspieces?

Thus concludes my complaining.