NYT Strands Sidekick publishes moderate-difficulty hints for daily puzzle
Updated
Updated · The New York Times · May 1
NYT Strands Sidekick publishes moderate-difficulty hints for daily puzzle
3 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 1
The May 2, 2026 guide covers Strands Sidekick No. 790 and offers spoiler warnings plus revealable clues for up to three theme words.
The New York Times says Strands launches at midnight in each player's time zone and that it publishes two Sidekicks daily based on Eastern Standard Time.
The post also directs users to comments for discussion and to a lookup page if they opened the wrong Sidekick for their puzzle number.
Why does the NYT use human testers when AI could offer personalized puzzle difficulty to millions of players?
As AI learns to create puzzles, what is the future value of human judgment in our daily digital games?