Wyna Liu has a way of making you feel like a genius and a complete amateur within the span of about thirty seconds. If you sat down with your morning coffee on Monday, September 22, 2025, hoping for a gentle start to the week, the NYT Connections puzzle #834 probably had other plans for your blood pressure.
It started easy enough. You see AREA and LENGTH. Your brain immediately jumps to middle school geometry. But then you hit the purple category.
Honestly, the "words that sound like plural letters" trick is becoming a classic Wyna move, but that doesn't make it any less frustrating when you're staring at ARS and wondering if you've suddenly forgotten how to speak English.
The Breakdown: What Actually Happened on Sept 22
The grid looked innocent. At first glance, you had a mix of casino names, math terms, and some very short, very odd-looking words. Here is how the groups actually shook out once the dust settled.
The Yellow Group: Basic Geometric Calculations
This was the "gimme" of the day. If you didn't get this one, you might need to go back to sixth grade.
- AREA
- LENGTH
- PERIMETER
- VOLUME
It's straightforward. No tricks here. Yellow is usually designed to be the "warm-up," and this fit the bill perfectly. Most players cleared this in under ten seconds.
The Green Group: Black-And-White Things
This is where things got a bit more "Connections-y." You had to look past the literal definitions and think about the visual.
- CROSSWORD
- DOMINO
- ORCA
- OREO
ORCA and OREO are such frequent flyers in NYT puzzles that they almost felt like red herrings for a crossword-specific category. But no, it was just about the monochrome. A classic "once you see it, you can't un-see it" moment.
The Blue Group: Las Vegas Casino Hotels
If you’ve never spent a hazy weekend on the Strip, this was likely your "default" category—the one you get only because the other twelve words are gone.
- ARIA
- ENCORE
- EXCALIBUR
- LUXOR
EXCALIBUR and LUXOR are iconic enough, but ARIA and ENCORE are the kind of words that could easily fit into a music category. That’s the classic misdirection. You see ARIA and think "opera," not "poker."
The Purple Group: Words That Sound Like Plural Letters
This was the absolute villain of the day. Purple is always the hardest, but this felt particularly sneaky because it relied entirely on phonetics.
- ARS (R's)
- AYES (I's)
- EASE (E's)
- OWES (O's)
Say them out loud. Seriously. It’s the only way to get it. When you see ARS on paper, you think of anatomy or Latin. When you say it? It’s just the letter R. This category is a perfect example of why the NYT Connections community on Reddit gets so heated. It’s clever, yeah, but it’s also the kind of thing that makes you want to throw your phone across the room.
Why This Puzzle Felt Harder Than Usual
Most Monday puzzles are a "soft landing" into the work week. This one felt like a Thursday.
The overlap was the real killer. ARIA is a Vegas hotel, but it’s also a musical term. ENCORE is a hotel, but it’s also something you hear at a concert. CROSSWORD is black and white, but it’s also a puzzle. Wyna Liu is a master at creating these "clusters" where a word fits into three different potential themes.
The community reaction was pretty much what you'd expect. Over on the r/NYTConnections subreddit, players were divided. Some people saw the letter sounds immediately. Others (the majority) ended up with a "Blue by Default" finish, meaning they solved the first three and the Vegas hotels were just what was left over.
How to Beat Puzzles Like This
If you're tired of losing your streak to words like ARS, you've gotta change your strategy.
- Read everything aloud. I’m serious. If a word looks weird (like ARS or OWES), say it. Phonetic categories are a staple of the purple group.
- Look for the "Double Fits." Before you submit that easy Yellow group, ask yourself: does AREA fit anywhere else? No? Okay, move on. But wait—ARIA looks a lot like AREA. That’s a visual trap.
- The "Vowel Test." If you see a bunch of short words starting with vowels (like today's Ayes, Ease, Owes), there's a 90% chance they are part of a wordplay category.
Actionable Steps for Tomorrow's Puzzle
- Don't Rush the Yellow: It's tempting to click the easy ones first, but that often robs you of the context you need for the harder groups.
- Check for Homophones: Always look for words that sound like other things—letters, numbers, or even body parts.
- Use the Shuffle: Sometimes your brain gets stuck on the physical placement of the words. Hitting shuffle can break those false associations.
The Sept 22 puzzle wasn't impossible, but it was a reminder that Connections is as much about how words sound as what they mean. If you missed the letter-sounds today, don't sweat it. Just remember to start talking to yourself during tomorrow's solve.
Check the NYT Games app tomorrow at midnight for the next challenge. If you're still struggling with the letter-sound categories, try looking through the last month of archives; Wyna tends to reuse these phonetic structures in cycles.