Looking for answers to today's Connections? The Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 2.8 out of 5.

We update our Connections hints and tips daily. And if the hints aren't enough, you can see all four solutions along with the category title and related words. In addition, for those of you reading this in a different time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #494.

There are spoilers for connection 495. Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read on.

Or see our guide to playing NYT Connections.

While today's Wordle answer guide recommends the best wordle starting words as a strategy, the Connections answer 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 to know the answer, scroll down further.

There is a bigger clue. While you paid for the chance to read about the Brazilian forest on your kindle, you got a lemon.

Now, what's the answer to today's game #495 Connection?

Drum roll please.

We had a lot of fun with the yellow category clunkers. I saw the flop and miss first, which led to a bust and a dud.

It took a little while for the other groups to click. However, I just didn't see that today. I was going back and forth between charge and plastic. I thought it wouldn't work because card was in other words charge card, credit card, plastic card, etc., but eventually I got there with credit and card.

From there I grabbed the green by chance, shot, time, and turn.

I had a Kindle and Rainforest at one point, but never considered Amazon Prime. I don't know why. I'm glad this is memorization stuffing.

It was during the third grouping that I realized the Texas Hold'em trap of card, river, flop, bust, or turn. Probably a good thing for me. Not to fall into that trap.

Reading this late in the day? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 3.3 out of 5.

After seeing “Goodfellas,” I immediately began looking for other films. That led me to “Jaws” and “The Car,” which took a little while, but I soon found “Swingers.”

He stayed on the field too long and got two strikes in the yellow division. The start was yards, grass, and green. Eventually, I switched green and park, but kept the field;

I moved to avoid it and saw Harvard and Criminal nearby. This led to Low, which helped us find Lemon and Natural.

This allowed him to see the address, answer, field, and handle in the green category. From there, I was able to correct mistakes in the yellow category.