Can I help you a little today? Today's puzzle - "No Dice!"- Should not cause too many problems as a theme, but you may not be fully familiar with all the answers yet.

Below we've compiled some useful tips for Strand #81 as well as answers if it came to it. We'll start with a few clues before building the full answer for Strand #81, so read on if you need a bit of help.

Warning: Spoilers are ahead for Strand #81.  

The official theme of NYT Strand #81 is:.. "No dice!".

And here's an unofficial tip from me: "Ice Breaker."

If you're still in the dark, here are some useful words to give those valuable clue tokens:

Still struggling? Spangram will give you tips about connecting words. Today, it starts with 'P' and ends with 'S'.

Scroll down to find out what it is...

THIS IS PARTYGAMES.

So what is Strand's answer today for game #81?

Drum roll, please...

...And Spangram was a party.

🔵🟡🔵🔵

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hi chain. If you've played enough ice breaking party games in your life, there's nothing too tricky here.

I was helped by seeing the word "card" early on. I knew this wouldn't be the answer, it blocked a single "H", so that led me to the first actual answer: Charade. 

It made me confident enough on the theme to go hunting for spangram that was actually just under the 'S' that finished my opener: PARTYGAMES.

spangram was neatly blocking 2 single words: TWISTER at the bottom right and CELEBRITY above it. I haven't played the latter, but it doesn't sound super fun.

Anyway, this left only 2 answers in the lower left corner of the board. I saw the "phone", so extended it to the phone and left only the mafia to play. Nice and simple.

Are you reading this in a later time zone? You can find the full article of yesterday's Strand answer for game #80 right here.