NYT Letter Boxed

Letter Boxed arrived in 2018 as part of the New York Times’ beta puzzles collection. Players rotate around a square frame of twelve letters, chaining words so that each new word begins with the last letter of the previous one. The goal is to use every letter in as few moves as possible.

• Launch: 2018 on the NYT Games beta page, later added to the app.
• Board: four sides with three letters each; adjacent letters on the same side cannot follow one another.
• Objective: complete the board in as few words as possible—two or three is the community benchmark.

Official access and pricing

Play Letter Boxed at NYTimes.com/puzzles/letter-boxed. Today’s board is free on web and in the NYT Games app with a logged- in Times account, while archives, stats, and streak tracking sit behind the NYT Games or All Access subscription.

Strategy: efficient chaining

• Pair rare letters: connect high-value consonants like J, Q, or Z with flexible vowels to keep options open.
• Plan a circuit: map a route that visits every side at least twice to ensure stray letters get consumed.
• Reuse endings: choose a long first word that ends in an uncommon letter, then let the second word absorb leftovers.
• Watch side rules: you cannot pick two letters from the same side in a row, so avoid backing yourself into dead ends.
• Starting pairs: open with a vowel-rich word that lands on a rare consonant, then pivot to a cleanup word that sweeps remaining vowels.

Practice a “triangle route”: pick one letter from each side to form a loop (e.g., top-left-right) and see if you can craft a single long word that uses that triangle. Then repeat with a different triangle to cover remaining letters. This reduces side conflicts and reveals two-word finishes faster.

Deliberate practice routines

Rotate your openings across three days: Day 1 start with a 10+ letter word that burns vowels; Day 2 force yourself to open with a word ending in a rare consonant to set up a cleanup sweep; Day 3 forbid the longest word entirely and chase a two-word finish from the outset. Tracking how each opener fares builds intuition for when to hunt a perfect pair.

• Side inventory: write the four side letters on paper and cross them off as you plan. If a side has two consonants, prioritize using one in your first word to avoid late dead-ends.
• Time splits: spend 90 seconds brainstorming all legal words that use the rarest letter, then assemble them into chains. This “letter-first” approach mirrors the Genius drills used in Spelling Bee.
• Route sketching: draw arrows between sides to visualize a legal path; a rectangle loop (top → right → bottom → left) often clears stray consonants efficiently.
• Archive replay: revisit a solved board and hunt for an even shorter solution. The reconstruction habit trains you to see alternate exits when a live board looks impossible.

Interesting facts

Letter Boxed was one of the first NYT Games built specifically for mobile portrait play, and it inspired the shareable emoji chain later used in Wordle. Community forums regularly post two-word clears, turning the puzzle into a cooperative hunt for the perfect pairing.

Practice idea: screenshot a tough board and draw possible paths with a stylus before playing. Visualizing multiple loops off-device helps you spot dead ends before they cost moves.