Looking for today's Connections answer for puzzle #509 from November 1, which is easier than yesterday's puzzle, this puzzle from Connections Companion has a difficulty rating of 2.6 out of 5.

We update our Connections clues and hints 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 another time zone, I have included a reflection on yesterday's puzzle, #508.

There are spoilers for connection #509. Only those who want to know the answer to today's connection should read on.

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 starting word in Wordle as the strategy, the Connections solution requires you to identify 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 will help 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:

These hints should at least help you find the answer to today's connection. If not, please continue reading for larger hints. Also, if you just want the answer, scroll down further. [Ashton Kutcher's best(?) before watching the movie, buy a Cheetos, open the bag slowly, order a beer, and drink it all up.

Now, what's the answer to today's Round 509 connection?

Drum roll please.

I was looking for net-related clues from the jump, since there was a possibility of drag nets and butterfly nets. This came off quickly.

Sticking with drag, I included creep, crawl, and finally inches in the yellow group. I can see why drag works here, but it is too different from the other three words in my opinion.

Draft and Tap caught on next, so it was easy to find bottle and can as a way to drink beer. [I knew about the Butterfly Effect and the Placebo Effect, but I didn't know about the Domino Effect and the Halo Effect until today. A domino effect is when a choice or event causes a chain reaction. The halo effect is when a person receives positive associations from a person, brand, or thing, which leads to positive thoughts about related nouns. The more you know, the more you know.

Anyway, while searching to figure this out, for some reason cheese balls and cheese puffs popped into my head, with Curl right behind it, and doodle because I couldn't think of anywhere else.

Then it came down to the aforementioned memorizing fill-in effects.

Are you reading this late? According to Connections Companion, the difficulty level was 3.3 out of 5.

I was hoping for more of a Halloween theme today, but in that realm anyway, it was more trick than treat.

It took a little while for the puzzle to fit together, but I started with a (Ford) Mustang and a (Dodge) Viper, then remembered the (Alfa Romeo) Spyder; I wasn't sure about the fourth, so I guessed a (Lamborghini) Diablo, which turned out well.

I had seen the flutter, wink, and blink, but the fourth didn't click again until I finally saw the bat.

Similarly, the yellow group had Darling, Love, and Treasure. I saved it with pumpkins. For the car group, a good strategy when lost in today's puzzle is to include one Halloween-like word at the end.

The rest are scavenger, egg, job, and witch.

Happy Halloween to all who participated!