Looking for the answer to today's Connections puzzle, puzzle #527 Connections from November 19, has increased in difficulty significantly compared to yesterday's puzzle.

We update our Connections hints and clues daily. And if the hints are not enough, all four solutions are listed below, along with the category title and related words. In addition, for those of you reading this in another time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #526.

There are spoilers for connection 527. Only read this if you want to know the answer to today's connection.

Alternatively, see our NYT Connections How to Play Guide for tips on how to solve the puzzle without our help.

While today's wordle solution guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections solution depends on identifying the categories that are connected from the 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by a color, with yellow being the easiest grouping and purple the most difficult. Hints are helpful as the answer is displayed after four wrong guesses.

If you need a hint to solve the groupings, here are each theme in order of difficulty:

If you read these hints, you should at least find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you only want the answer, scroll down further.

There is an even bigger clue. Concentrate on unlocking your device to find the next pasta recipe while avoiding double trouble.

Now, what is the answer to today's game #527 Connection?

Drum roll, please.

Today's puzzle made me think, and not just because of the sudden increase in difficulty compared to yesterday's puzzle.

I recently watched a video of Hank Green, and while he was solving Connections, he didn't solve it until he knew what all four groups meant. It made me think about how my solving is more vibe based and based on what comes to mind from the board, like code names. In fact, I think my solving method is similar to finding connections by code name. How do you solve it?

I got stuck at one point trying to make a game show connection between Wheel and Jeopardy, but it didn't work. This resulted in fingerprints, passwords, and pins starting a green category. Faces” was put together for how to unlock devices.

The board shifted so that focus and specialties were closer together. This revealed to me the expertise groups; Field and Concentration were quickly found from there.

Working on dribbling, wheels, elbows and basketball, I got stuck here, but had to admit I was overthinking it.

Nevertheless, the wheel and elbow stuck with me and I finally made the connection, organically, to pasta noodle. Somehow, I can barely remember what pasta looks like. A wheel of cheese, an ear of corn, a ribbon of beef ....... From there, I finally got to pasta.

Then double spy, double dribble, double jeopardy, and double standard became stuffing for memorization. Cute.

Read this later in the hour. According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 2.3 out of 5.

Dave tried the Connections Guide for the second time this week and successfully solved the puzzle. In fact, he made only one mistake in the yellow category. Dave knew it was about hair care, but he tripped on “Die” (a brain fart in that he momentarily assumed it was a dye).

From there it was smooth sailing and he went through the “monthly expenses” category. As obvious as the first three were, the “XXX crabs” category was much the same. Dave didn't know what a “spider crab” was, but he guessed and was right.

Once he had the first three down, he only had the last four left. He couldn't come up with the “spotted ones” before grouping the last four, but that didn't matter because the puzzle was complete and he was satisfied.