Today's NYT “Strands” tips, Spangram and answers for Saturday October 5th

Looking for Friday's Strands clues, spangrams, and answers? You can find them here:

ForbesNYT “Strands” today: Clues, Spangram and answers for Friday, October 4thFrom Erik Cain

Hey people! I'm back in the saddle for another week strands Leader. But that's enough about me. I hope you have a great weekend.

Today NYT strands Hints, Spangram and answers follow soon.

How to play Strands

The New York Times' strands Puzzle is a classic word search game. It is now available in the NYT Games app alongside similar things Wordle And Connections (which we also cover in Forbes Games daily guides).

There's a new game strands to play every day. The game presents you with a letter grid of six by eight letters. The goal is to find a group of words that have something in common and give you a clue as to what the topic is. When you find a topic word, it remains highlighted in blue.

You also need to find a special word called Spangram. This will tell you what the words have in common. The spangram connects at least two sides of the board, but may not start or end there. While the topic words are not a proper noun, the spangram can be a proper noun. When you find the Spangram, it will remain highlighted in yellow.

Each letter is used once in one of the topic words and in the Spangram. You can connect letters vertically, horizontally and diagonally and change direction in the middle of a word. If you're playing on a touchscreen, double-tap the last letter to place your guess.

Finding three valid off-topic words of at least four letters will unlock the Hint button. Clicking on it will highlight the letters that make up one of the topic words.

Be warned: you must be on your guard. Sometimes you need to fill in the missing words in a phrase. Other days the game might revolve around synonyms or homophones. The difficulty varies from day to day and the puzzle creators will sometimes try to surprise you.

What is today's Strands clue?

Scroll slowly! Right after the note for today strands Riddle, I will reveal the answer words.

The official topic note for today Beach Mystery is…

Absolutely not!

Do you need additional help? Here's another note…

There are eight Topic words found today including the spangram.

What are today's NYT Strands picks?

Spoiler alert! Don't scroll any further down the page until you're ready to find out today strands Notes.

Here are the first two letters of each word, including the spangram, in today's puzzle:

What are today's NYT Strands answers?

Before I tell the other person the full word list, I'll first tell you about the Spangram and show you where it is in the grid.

This is yours Final spoiler warning!

Today strands Spangram is…

THIS IS UNREAL

Here you can find it in the grid…

The rest of today strands Theme words are…

• CHARLATAN
• HUMBUG
• SHINE
• FALSE REPORT
• QUACK
• FAKE
• INCORRECT

This is what the finished grid looks like…

I needed a hint to get started, but as soon as the game gave me the letters for FAKE, I was off to the races. I found PHONY, SHAM and HOAX pretty quickly.

I thought “unreal” was a catchphrase too, but not quite. But then I got the Spangram. This made it easier to find the last few words since they were all isolated.

I used a hint and the Spangram was the fifth topic word I found.

That's all for today strands Hints and answers. Be sure to check out Paul's blog for hints and the solution to Sunday's game if you need it.