NYT Connections 3x3 Hints and Answers for the Week of Wed, Sep 16, 2026
Stuck on Connections 3x3 for Wednesday, Sep 16th, 2026? Test a grouping on the practice board before you spend a mistake on the real one, or take one nudge at a time from the Reveal Assistant.
Practice Board
A safe replica of the Connections 3x3 grid. Solve to test groups before the real puzzle, or Plan to drag tiles into your own clusters.
Reveal Assistant
Prefer a nudge? Reveal a hint, show a group's title, or uncover single words one at a time, then head back to the board.
Trick words
NYT puts decoys in the grid on purpose. With only three words per group, one misplaced word breaks two groups at once. These are the words to double-check before submitting.
How the Connections 3x3 Solver Works
This page has two tools that work together. The practice board is a replica of the real grid, so you can try a grouping here without spending one of your mistakes on NYT's board. Select three tiles, submit, and you either lock the group in or find out you were one away. The Reveal Assistant is for when testing isn't enough. It opens each group a step at a time: a hint that points at the category without naming it, then the title, then individual words.
That progression matters. On a nine-word board, one confirmed group leaves six words and two categories, which is usually enough to finish unaided. Most answer pages hand you all three groups at once and end the puzzle.
What Is Connections 3x3?
Connections 3x3 is part of the New York Times Bonus Puzzles, which drop every Wednesday. It is the daily Connections game scaled down: nine words in three groups of three rather than sixteen in four. The smaller board sounds easier, but with only three words per group there is far less slack. One word in the wrong place breaks two groups at once.
The daily puzzle's yellow-green-blue-purple difficulty ladder does not carry over, so there is no "start with yellow" shortcut. Every group is equally likely to be the tricky one, which is why the practice board matters more here than it does on the daily grid.
Tips for Solving Connections 3x3
Look for the group with the most specific category first: abbreviations, a fill-in-the-blank pattern, or a set of proper nouns. Those tend to have the least overlap with the rest of the board.
Check the trick words before you commit. A word that plausibly fits two categories is almost always the one the constructor built the misdirection around. Place it last, not first.
If two groups both seem to want the same word, solve the third group instead. Eliminating three words from a nine-word board narrows the remaining ambiguity fast.
Frequently Asked Questions
Connections 3x3 is a New York Times Bonus Puzzle: nine words that split into three groups of three, instead of the daily game's sixteen words in four groups. It drops every Wednesday alongside the rest of the bonus set.
No. The daily Connections puzzle ranks its four groups yellow through purple by difficulty, but with only three groups there is no equivalent ladder. Our board uses three neutral colours purely to keep the groups apart once you've solved them.
It is a safe replica of the real grid, so you can test a grouping without spending a mistake on NYT's board. Select three tiles and press Submit. A correct group slides to the top and locks in as a coloured bar; if you are one away, a short "1 away…" nudge appears. Switch to Plan mode to drag tiles into your own clusters with no answers or hints shown.
It gives you the smallest useful nudge instead of the whole answer. Each group offers a hint first, then its title, then individual words one at a time, so you unlock only as much as you need and go back to the board.
Trick words are the board words most likely to mislead you, usually because they plausibly fit two groups. On a three-word group a single misplaced word breaks two groups at once, so they are worth checking before you commit.
A new board arrives with the rest of the NYT Bonus Puzzles every Wednesday and stays up for the whole week. Use the week picker to look up an earlier drop.
NYT Bonus Puzzle Solvers, Hints and Answers
Every puzzle in this week's Wednesday drop
