Hey there, folks! I hope you’re having a fantastic week so far.

It’s been really nice to feel some actual warmth on my face when I go outside. I’m glad I didn’t have to wait too long for that after my Caribbean vacation a couple of weeks ago.

I need to be more active, so the other day, I went out for a little walk that just happened to take me by an Irish pub. I suddenly seemed to lose all sense of self-control as I was drawn into this establishment and before I knew it, I requested a pint of Guinness. I’m still not quite sure how that happened. Or how I ended up having a second one. Very strange.

Before we begin, I’ve set up a discussion group for NYT Connections and this column on Discord. We have a great little community over there and we chat about more than NYT games. Everyone who has joined has been lovely. It’s a fun hangout spot.

It’s also the best way to give me any feedback about the column, especially on the rare(!) occasions that I mess something up since I don’t look at the comments or Twitter much.

Today’s NYT Connections hints and answers for Thursday, April 17, are coming right up.

How To Play Connections

Connections is a free, popular New York Times daily word game. You get a new puzzle at midnight every day. You can play on the NYT website or Games app.

You’re presented with a grid of 16 words. Your task is to arrange them into four groups of four by figuring out the links between them. The groups could be things like items you can click, names for research study participants or words preceded by a body part.

There’s only one solution for each puzzle, and you’ll need to be careful when it comes to words that might fit into more than one category. You can shuffle the words to perhaps help you see links between them.

Each group is color coded. The yellow group is usually the easiest to figure out, blue and green fall in the middle, and the purple group is usually the most difficult one. The purple group often involves wordplay.

Select four words you think go together and press Submit. If you make a guess and you’re incorrect, you’ll lose a life. If you’re close to having a correct group, you might see a message telling you that you’re one word away from getting it right, but you’ll still need to figure out which one to swap.

If you make four mistakes, it’s game over. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen with the help of some hints, and, if you’re really struggling, today’s Connections answers. As with Wordle and other similar games, it’s easy to share results with your friends on social media and group chats.

If you have an NYT All Access or Games subscription, you can access the publication’s Connections archive. This includes every previous game of Connections, so you can go back and play any of those that you have missed.

Aside from the first 60 games or so, you should be able to find my hints via Google if you need them! Just click here and add the date of the game for which you need clues or the answers to the search query.

What Are Today’s Connections Hints?

Scroll slowly! Just after the hints for each of today’s Connections groups, I’ll reveal what the groups are without immediately telling you which words go into them.

Today’s 16 words are...

• CASE
• MANTLE
• SAUCE
• CORE
• CRUST
• FORTY
• TRUNK
• TROUT
• TORSO
• YOUNG
• SIX-PACK
• CHEESE
• TOPPINGS
• BONDS
• MIDRIFF
• GROWLER

And the hints for today’s Connections groups are:

• Yellow group — where you'd find a navel
• Green group — get it hot like Papa John
• Blue group — perhaps the last step before a stein or pitcher
• Purple group — they took a swing (well, many) and found success

What Are Today’s Connections Groups?

Need some extra help?

Be warned: we’re starting to get into spoiler territory.

Today’s Connections groups are...

• Yellow group — central section of the body
• Green group — components of a pizza
• Blue group — units of beer
• Purple group — baseball greats

What Are Today’s Connections Answers?

Spoiler alert! Don’t scroll any further down the page until you’re ready to find out today’s Connections answers.

This is your final warning!

Today’s Connections answers are...

• Yellow group — central section of the body (CORE, MIDRIFF, TORSO, TRUNK)
• Green group — components of a pizza (CHEESE, CRUST, SAUCE, TOPPINGS)
• Blue group — units of beer (CASE, FORTY, GROWLER, SIX-PACK)
• Purple group — baseball greats (BONDS, MANTLE, TROUT, YOUNG)

That’s 51 straight wins for me thanks to another perfect game. Here's how I fared:

????
????
????
????

A pretty straightforward one today, I thought. I spotted the blues on the top-left to bottom-right diagonal right away -- or at least it clicked when I got to GROWLER as I was writing out the word list. Pretty simple.

The greens were up next. CRUST and TOPPING gave that away. Then the yellows jumped out at me thanks to MIDRIFF.

Despite my general lack of baseball knowledge, I did recognize three of the names here as M.L.B. players. I could not have told you off the bat (hehe) whether they were pitchers or batters or whatever. But at least I got the connection.

That’s all there is to it for today’s Connections clues and answers. Be sure to check my blog tomorrow for hints and the solution for Friday’s game if you need them.

P.S. When it’s at its very best, I believe that there’s no more enjoyable artform than pro wrestling. I’ve been a fan my entire life. I don’t much enjoy MMA, and far prefer the theatricality of pro wrestling.

It’s a mostly improvised dance between skilled athletes that takes place in theater-in-the-round. It's a violent soap opera that blurs the lines between reality and fiction and just happens to sometimes involve baseball bats wrapped in barbed wire.

WrestleMania is this weekend and I’ll be glued to it at least until 9PM ET on Sunday, then I’ll watch the next episode of The Last of Us before I’ll switching back. In honor of the biggest pro wrestling event of the year (sorry, All In), I want to share a match that has nothing to do with WWE. I think it highlights the kind of magic that can happen when a crowd really buys into something.

During WrestleMania weekend in 2019, a smaller company put on a match between The Invisible Man and his evil brother, The Invisible Stan. Yes, it’s a match between two invisible wrestlers who only the referee can see.

This only works because of referee Bryce Remsburg's total commitment to the bit. He does a great job of selling the action as if he was both a witness and a participant, from counting pinfall attempts that the two "competitors" trade to getting attacked by one of them (screw you, Stan).

I don’t know how much knowledge you need to have of pro wrestling tropes to truly understand everything here, but the commentary team does a good job of interpreting what’s supposed to be happening. In any case, I think this is a lot of fun and a fantastic piece of performance art. One YouTube comment sums this up pretty perfectly: "This is simultaneously the stupidest and greatest thing I've ever seen."

A quick warning, there's lots of NSFW language in this one that starts almost immediately. Though I can't imagine many of you will watch it at the office anyway:

Have a great day! Stay hydrated! Call someone you love!

Please follow my blog for more coverage of NYT Connections and other word games, and even some video game news, insights and analysis. It helps me out a lot! Sharing this column with other people who play Connections would be appreciated too. Also, follow me on Bluesky! It’s fun there.

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