NYT 'Connections' November 29: Hints and Answers for Game #537

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An important lesson when playing Connections is to not rush into solving the game.

Some words may seem like they belong together in a specific category but can actually be suited to more than one.

So if you rush your answers, you might use up all your guesses and ruining your winning streak.

As Wyna Liu, the editor of Connections, has warned, don't "rage solve."

"My best piece of advice is to wait as long as you can before guessing," she told Newsweek previously.

"You may see the board and have completely identified the category, seeing five words that could belong in that category," she said. "Don't try to guess the four words in that category because even though you know what the fifth member is, you won't know which of the four it might not be"—and that would ultimately waste a turn.

How to Play 'Connections'

Players are given a table of 16 words. These are split into four groups of four based on common characteristics and placed into categories. These vary in difficulty from yellow to green to blue to purple, with yellow considered the easiest category and purple the trickiest.

For example, a recent game linked the words "braid," "bun," "pony" and "twist" under the category: "Ways to wear your hair up." This was a blue category.

Once you have selected four words, you click the "submit" button. If your choices are correct, they will appear in the category color and disappear from the grid. If they are incorrect, however, they will remain gray and stay on the board.

If you are stuck, try selecting the "shuffle" button to move the words to a different place on the grid.

Newsweek has put together some clues on how to play as well as hints and the answers for Friday's game, so be careful scrolling down if you want to solve it by yourself.