NYT Connections Today Oct. 6, 2026: Hints and Answers for #1213 as Hidden Talents Puzzle Stumps Players

NEW YORK — The New York Times released Connections puzzle No. 1213 on Tuesday, and the grid is packed with misdirection, from mountain ranges that are not mountain ranges to place names that turn out to be hotel chains and furniture.

For players who want to keep their streaks alive without seeing the full solution, hints are provided below, moving from general to specific. The complete answers appear near the end of this article.

How Connections works

Connections presents players with a grid of 16 words. The goal is to sort them into four groups of four words that share a common theme.

Each group is assigned a color that reflects its difficulty. Yellow is considered the easiest, followed by green, blue and purple, which is usually the trickiest and often relies on wordplay.

Players can make up to four mistakes before the game ends. A new puzzle is released every day at midnight local time.

Today's 16 words

Here are the words in Tuesday's grid:

ADIRONDACK, KNICKKNACK, CATSKILL, HOLIDAY, COMFORT, BERKSHIRE, STABILITY, HAMPTON, WINDSOR, MERRILL, WINGBACK, DAYS, CITI, PIANOFORTE, EAMES and GOLDMAN.

Today's Connections hints

Players who want only a light nudge can use these general clues for each group.

Yellow: Think about names you might see in the business pages or on Wall Street.

Green: Picture browsing a furniture showroom, or relaxing on a porch or beach.

Blue: Consider places where travelers might spend the night.

Purple: Look closely at the endings of the words. Each one hides something a person might be good at.

Watch out for red herrings

Today's puzzle includes several traps designed to lead players into wrong guesses.

ADIRONDACK, CATSKILL and BERKSHIRE are all names of mountain ranges or highland regions in New York and New England. Players who spot that pattern may go looking for a fourth, but there is no mountain group in today's grid. Each of those words belongs to a different category.

HAMPTON and WINDSOR may also look like place names. HAMPTON could suggest the Hamptons on Long Island, while WINDSOR is a town in England and Canada, as well as the name of the British royal family. In this puzzle, they serve different purposes.

COMFORT and HOLIDAY can feel like general concepts tied to relaxation, which might tempt players to group them with words related to chairs or leisure.

GOLDMAN and MERRILL could appear to be surnames, but they point toward a business theme.

More specific hints

Players still stuck can use one word from each group as a starting point.

Yellow: GOLDMAN

Green: WINDSOR

Blue: HOLIDAY

Purple: STABILITY

Today's Connections categories

Spoiler warning: The names of the categories are below.

Yellow: Financial firms, for short

Green: Kinds of chairs

Blue: ___ Inn hotels

Purple: Ending in talents

Today's Connections answers

Spoiler warning: The full answers are below.

Yellow (Financial firms, for short): BERKSHIRE, CITI, GOLDMAN, MERRILL

Green (Kinds of chairs): ADIRONDACK, EAMES, WINDSOR, WINGBACK

Blue (___ Inn hotels): COMFORT, DAYS, HAMPTON, HOLIDAY

Purple (Ending in talents): CATSKILL, KNICKKNACK, PIANOFORTE, STABILITY

Breaking down the answers

The yellow group features shortened names of well-known financial companies. BERKSHIRE refers to Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate long led by Warren Buffett. CITI is short for Citigroup or Citibank. GOLDMAN refers to Goldman Sachs, and MERRILL refers to Merrill, formerly Merrill Lynch, now part of Bank of America.

The green group includes four styles of chairs. An ADIRONDACK chair is a wooden outdoor chair with a slanted back and wide armrests, popular on porches and lawns. EAMES refers to chairs designed by Charles and Ray Eames, including the famous Eames Lounge Chair. A WINDSOR chair is a traditional wooden chair with a back made of spindles. A WINGBACK chair has upholstered side panels, or "wings," that extend from the back.

The blue group consists of hotel chains that end with the word "Inn": Comfort Inn, Days Inn, Hampton Inn and Holiday Inn. All four are familiar names along U.S. highways.

The purple group required players to look at the endings of each word, where a word for a talent is hidden.

CATSKILL ends in "skill."

KNICKKNACK ends in "knack."

PIANOFORTE ends in "forte," meaning a person's strong point.

STABILITY ends in "ability."

The purple category was the hardest for many players because three of the words, CATSKILL, PIANOFORTE and KNICKKNACK, appear unrelated at first glance. CATSKILL was a particularly sneaky inclusion, since it fit neatly into the false mountain theme alongside ADIRONDACK and BERKSHIRE.

How difficult was today's puzzle?

Many players considered Tuesday's puzzle on the harder side because of the number of overlapping themes.

The financial and hotel groups were relatively straightforward for players familiar with the names, with CITI, BERKSHIRE, HAMPTON and COMFORT acting as easy entry points. However, the presence of several geographic names created confusion, and the purple group required careful reading of word endings.

One useful strategy was to solve the green group by identifying obvious chair styles such as EAMES and WINGBACK, then figuring out where ADIRONDACK and WINDSOR fit.

Tips for solving Connections

Players hoping to improve their results can use a few strategies.

Look for words that could belong to more than one group. These are often red herrings designed to trip up players.

Start with the group you are most confident about. Solving an easy category first reduces the number of options left.

Consider hidden words within longer words. Purple categories often rely on prefixes, suffixes or words buried inside other words.

Avoid rushing. Since players have only four mistakes, it can help to identify all four groups before submitting any guesses.

Yesterday's Connections answers

For players catching up, Monday's puzzle, No. 1212, featured these groups:

Yellow (Calm): CONTENT, PEACEFUL, PLACID, SERENE

Green (Mature content adjectives): EXPLICIT, GRAPHIC, STRONG, SUGGESTIVE

Blue (Kinds of boards): ADVISORY, CHESS, IRONING, MESSAGE

Purple (Ending in ways to temporarily acquire): PARENT, PLEASE, SAPPHIRE, SLOAN

About Connections

Connections launched in 2023 and is edited by Wyna Liu. It has become one of the most popular games in The New York Times' lineup, alongside Wordle, Strands, Spelling Bee and the daily crossword.

The next Connections puzzle, No. 1214, will be released at midnight local time Wednesday, Oct. 7.