Are you looking for an answer to today's connections? The 518/11/10 connection answer for puzzle # is harder than yesterday's puzzle, and the Connection Companion has rated the difficulty of this puzzle at 3 out of 5.

Every day we update this article with connection tips and tips to help you find all 4 of today's answers. If the hint is not enough, you can find all the 4 answers below, with words that correlate with the title of the category. Additionally, it includes reflections on yesterday's puzzle, #517, in case you're reading this in a different time zone.

Spoilers are ahead for connection #518. Read only if you want to know the answer for today's connection.

Also see How to Play NYT Connect Guide for tips on how to solve puzzles without our help.

Just in case, The Tech Guild of The New York Times is on strike and is asking people not to play games on the NYT gaming app or online. They created a strike edition website that has the same puzzle if you do not want to cross the picket line.

Unlike our guide to Wordle answers today we recommend the best Wordle Start word as your strategy, solving the connection relies on identifying the category to connect between 16 words. The difficulty of each category is represented by color, yellow is the easiest grouping and purple is the most challenging. If you make 4 mistakes in your guess, the tips may help, as the answer will be revealed.

If you need tips for solving grouping, here are the themes for each based on the order of difficulty:

These tips should get at least some of the ways to find the answers connected today. Or scroll further down if you just want to know the answer.

Here's a big tip: Don't shake too easily or get lost, but if you've fallen off a beaten path, when football season is almost over

, what's the answer for today's connection in game #518?

Drum roll, please...

Today I came out after solving the purple category for the first time in a long time. With that in mind, I took the guess to add the golfer and, well, swing into the mix and it paid off because the saloon door and pendulum immediately shouted at me "what to swing".

Next, we swung to the opposite end of the difficulty spectrum in the yellow category with barrels, cylinders, drums, and tanks.

Then it turned green. At first I thought about the connections associated with pastoralism and kept trying to shoehorn cowboys, but when I realized that it was a dead end, it became clear that Pilot, Shepherd, Steer and Usher are all synonyms for guiding something.

It filled today's blue category with Cowboys, Jets, Rams and Ravens.

Are you reading this in a later time zone? According to Connections Companion, the game #517 has a difficulty rating of 2 out of 5 Connections answers:

I was almost caught in the trap of shredded, awkward, twisted, and radical slang. I do not know why I did not take the bait.

Instead, when I licked and traced, I started the puzzle yesterday and went back to shred and then led to an ounce for a small amount.

The bus and the throne were close to each other and I quickly added a room to the end. It was a quick job to find the powder (room) and the rest (room). All colloquial for the bathroom.

Gnarly and twisted got their time in the sun here by snagging bent and warped for the yellow category.

So algebra rote by exponents, radicals, powers, and roots. Mathematics is not a personal strong suit and I'm not sure if I remember those words being all specific to algebra. So, I'm happy to have it in the end.