|
June 14, 2026 
|
|
|
Today’s puzzle is by John Kugelman, a software engineer. My colleague Caitlin Lovinger wrote in the Wordplay column: “It’s fun to work on sprawling extravaganzas, with layers and details and single rebuses and so on, but I also really love a crystalline trick like the one we get today. Mr. Kugelman has a gift for expanding one little linguistic foible into an entertaining production.”
Puzzles You May Have Missed
Crossplay Tip
Consider swapping the Q if there are no Us remaining and no easy spot to place it: The Q is the least flexible tile in Crossplay and often requires a U for high scoring. Therefore, it is often better to bite the bullet. Instead of having the letter weigh down your options for many turns in a row, shedding it immediately for very few points is often worth it, in that you may net more points over a few turns even though you’ll sacrifice points immediately. At the most extreme, if you take 0 points for one turn by swapping the Q, it could both net you more points over a few turns and weigh down your opponent’s options if the letter is drawn later!
Connections Quandary
Here’s the hardest category from Saturday, June 6. What connects these four things? See the answer in the P.S.
Strands
Last week’s hardest Strands puzzle was OOZING, from Thursday, June 11 — 81.78 percent of solvers were able to complete it.
Last week’s easiest Strands puzzle was HERPETOLOGY 101, from Sunday, June 7 — 93.03 percent of solvers were able to complete it.
Strands puzzles last week — from June 5 to 11 — were a little harder than those from the week before.
Wordle Weekly Recap
Hardest word: MAFIA, from Monday, June 8.
Average guesses: 4.69, with 10.64 percent of players solving in three or fewer.
Easiest word: ALIGN, from Wednesday, June 10.
Average guesses: 3.84, with 38.26 percent of players solving in three or fewer.
The Wordle answers last week — from June 5 to 11 — were slightly easier than those from the week before.
Spelling Bee Hive
Overall, the Spelling Bee hives last week — from June 5 to 11 — were much easier than those from the week before. Of our subscribers who played last week, 41.29 percent hit Genius at least once.
Last week’s hardest puzzle: Tuesday, June 9, had the hardest pangram, with only 25.68 percent of users finding it.
Tuesday’s pangram: LIFELONG
Letter set: O E F G I L N
Relax With Us
During World War II, the Council on Books in Wartime — a coalition of booksellers, authors and leaders of the publishing industry — began printing and distributing millions of books to American troops, in an effort to boost morale and alleviate boredom. These were special paperbacks called Armed Services Editions, designed to be lightweight and portable enough for a soldier to carry in a cargo pocket. The program spanned genres without discrimination (or government censorship); A.S.E. titles included “Moby Dick” and “The Grapes of Wrath,” but also “Dracula” and “Adventures of Superman.”
I recently picked up a faithful A.S.E. reprinting of Dashiell Hammett’s “The Maltese Falcon” (which was never actually chosen by the Council for an A.S.E.). I don’t have a strong opinion in the physical book versus e-reader debate, but it’s hard not to feel a bit more connected to history when I read about it. I find the practice to be grounding, and it adds another meaningful layer to the reading experience. And while I’m definitely not on the front lines of a battlefield, the smaller form factor is pretty convenient for the subway, too.
How are we doing?
We’d love your feedback on this newsletter. Please email thoughts and suggestions to crosswordeditors@nytimes.com.
Thanks for playing! Subscribe to New York Times Games. If you like this newsletter, you can tell your friends to sign up here.
P.S. The answer to the Connections Quandary is that they are all terms that can come before “table.”
