NEW YORK — Friday's edition of The New York Times' Connections puzzle leans heavily on sports and television, but a few cleverly placed words could send even seasoned players down the wrong path.

Puzzle No. 1216, released for Friday, Oct. 9, 2026, asks players to sort 16 words into four hidden groups of four. Below are hints arranged from gentle to more revealing, strategy tips for avoiding today's traps and, for those who need them, the full answers.

Spoiler warning: The answers to today's Connections puzzle appear later in this article. Read only as far as you need.

How Connections works

Connections presents players with a grid of 16 words. The goal is to find four groups of four words that share a common link. Players can make up to four mistakes before the game ends.

Each group is color-coded by difficulty. Yellow is generally the most straightforward, followed by green, then blue, with purple usually the trickiest and often built on wordplay.

The Times launched Connections in June 2023, and it has since become one of the most popular games in the newspaper's lineup, alongside Wordle and the crossword. Much of its appeal comes from red herrings, words that appear to fit more than one category but belong in only one.

Like other Times games, a new puzzle is released at midnight local time.

Friday's grid includes the following words:

BLOWOUT, ROMP, ROUT, SWEEP, CHANNEL, INPUT, POWER, VOLUME, HIGHLIGHTS, RECAP, SCORES, STATS, CONDITIONER, GUITAR, KISS,........

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