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 give it another spin.

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?

Nope, no movie references or obscure hobbies today.

Theres a reference to one sport, or maybe we should call it a pastime?

But even if youve never played, youll recognize the words.

Green category - Wishing you 300 on this one.

Blue category - If youre famous, you might get your name on these.

Purple category - Im just going to take this opportunity to tell a dumb joke.

Why was six afraid of seven?

Because seven ate nine.

Does todays Connections game involve any wordplay?

Yes, the purple category involves homophones.

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?

PIN and PEN are in different categories today, despite their similarities.

TOO and TEE are also in different categories from each other.

COPY is not radio lingo here (that waslast week).

Instead, its what you might carry as BACKUP for an item you could lose.

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.

The theme for todays green category is BOWLINGand the words are: ALLEY, BALL, LANE, PIN.

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

Got the numbers first.

That was the purple category.

That suggested I should look for something else, and I saw EXTRA and BACKUP to go with it.

COPY would have to be the last one there.

One of my quicker solves, even though it looked a bit daunting at first.