Waking up to a fresh grid of 16 words is basically a morning ritual for millions of us now. But some days, the New York Times just decides to choose violence. If you were looking at the NYT Connections August 22 board and felt your brain melting into a puddle, you definitely aren't the only one. Honestly, the way they structured this specific puzzle felt like a personal attack on anyone who isn't a massive cinephile or a regular at a Friday night poker game.
The difficulty curve was jagged. We’ve all seen the red herrings—those little traps where "Sun," "Moon," and "Globe" look like they belong in a space-themed group—but this one took it to a different level. It wasn't just about finding synonyms. It was about spotting names that act as verbs and recognizing movie titles that are missing their first half.
Why NYT Connections August 22 Was So Tricky
Most people get stuck because they see a pattern and refuse to let go. On August 22, the "astronomy" trap was the big one. You saw Sun, Moon, and Globe and immediately wanted to find a fourth celestial body. Maybe Omaha? No. Washington? Obviously not. The trick was that these words were actually scattered across three entirely different categories. It's the classic Wyna Liu move—giving you three-fourths of a category and hiding the fourth word in a place you’d never look.
The Breakdown of the Groups
If you're still staring at the grid in your archives or just want to know how the logic panned out, here is how the madness was organized.
Yellow: U.S. Presidents
This was supposed to be the "easy" one.
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- Adams
- Ford
- Grant
- Washington
Simple enough, right? Except when you have Amy sitting right next to Adams, and suddenly your brain is thinking about the actress Amy Adams instead of the second president. Or you see Ford and think of the car, or Grant and think of a scholarship.
Green: Actors Whose Last Names Are Also Verbs
This is where the wordplay got clever. You had to look past the person and look at the action.
- Chevy Chase (To chase)
- Christoph Waltz (To waltz)
- Geoffrey Rush (To rush)
- Tom Cruise (To cruise)
Kinda brilliant, actually. Most players spotted Tom Cruise and Chevy Chase as "actors" but then got stuck trying to find other actors, not realizing the "verb" connection was the actual glue.
Blue: Kinds Of Poker
This category was a bit of a niche knowledge test. If you don't play cards, you were basically guessing.
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- Draw
- Omaha
- Strip
- Stud
Omaha is the one that really tripped people up. Unless you're into Texas Hold 'em variations, Omaha looks like a city in Nebraska or maybe a beach from D-Day. Seeing it alongside Strip (which people wanted to group with Las Vegas) was a total mind-game.
The Purple Category: The 90s Movie Nightmare
The Purple category is always the "hard" one, but the NYT Connections August 22 purple group was particularly brutal. It relied on you knowing your 1990s cinema history and spotting a very specific grammatical pattern: Proper Nouns After Gerunds in '90s Movie Titles.
Basically, these are the names that come after the "-ing" word in famous movie titles:
- Amy (Chasing Amy)
- John Malkovich (Being John Malkovich)
- Las Vegas (Leaving Las Vegas)
- Private Ryan (Saving Private Ryan)
Honestly, who sees John Malkovich and thinks "Ah yes, the word that follows a gerund"? Most of us just think of the guy with the very distinct voice. This is why many players ended up getting purple by default—simply by process of elimination after solving the other three.
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Common Mistakes to Avoid Next Time
A lot of the frustration with this specific date came from the "Story" vs "Storey" confusion. In the US, the levels of a building are spelled "stories," which can lead to overlaps with books or tales. While that wasn't the main hurdle on August 22, it's a reminder that the NYT uses American English conventions.
Another huge pitfall was the "city" lure. With Omaha, Washington, and Las Vegas all on the board, people were desperate to find a fourth city. It’s a classic bait-and-switch. When you see three of a kind like that, it's almost always a trap.
How to Get Better at Spotting These Patterns
If you want to stop losing your streak, you’ve gotta start thinking like a cryptic crossword solver.
- Look for names that are also other things. Like we saw with the actors, Rush and Cruise are actions.
- Say the words out loud. Sometimes the sound of the word reveals a connection that the spelling hides.
- Don't click until you have all four. It sounds obvious, but "pre-guessing" is how you lose lives. If you have three words that fit a "cities" theme, don't just click them and hope the fourth is a trick—find the fourth first.
- Ignore the colors. Don't try to find "the easy one" first. Sometimes the purple category is actually the most obvious to you if you happen to be a movie buff or a science nerd.
The NYT Connections August 22 puzzle was a masterclass in misdirection. It took common words and gave them specialized meanings. It’s not just a game of vocabulary; it’s a game of mental flexibility. If you can't pivot from "Washington the President" to "Washington the City," you're going to have a hard time.
To stay ahead of the game, try to categorize every word in at least two different ways before you make your first move. Ask yourself: Is this a noun? A verb? Part of a famous phrase? Once you start seeing the words as multi-tool objects rather than static labels, the grid starts to make a lot more sense.
The best way to prep for tomorrow is to look at the words you missed today and figure out exactly why the connection eluded you. Usually, it's because you were looking at the definition instead of the structure. Keep that in mind, and you'll keep that streak alive.
Actionable Next Steps
- Review your archive: Go back to August 22 and try to re-solve it without looking at the answers to see if the logic sticks.
- Practice category-switching: Take a single word like "STREAK" and write down four different contexts it could belong to (weather, sports, pranks, appearance).
- Diversify your trivia: Spend five minutes reading about different card games or 90s film titles; these are recurring themes that the NYT editors love to revisit.