Flip, an anagram chain that grows and shrinks in turn

Flip is a chain of ten answers that take turns. One answer is a letter longer than the answer before it, the next is a letter shorter, and so on to the end, so the chain flips between two lengths and drifts a little as it goes.

How it plays

Each answer is an anagram of those next to it with a letter added or removed. Steps that only add or drop a letter don't count, so REVEAL to LEAVE is a step and LEAVER to LEVER is not.

Since every step alternates, the length of every answer is known from the start. A long answer has to lose a letter to make the short answer after it, and a short answer has to gain one to make the long answer after it.

Flip's chains tend to stay among words of five to seven letters, so the answers are close cousins. That helps, because you can see a lot of the next answer in the one you have, and it hurts, because several words can look like they might fit until the clue settles it.

A worked example

This chain was made up for this page and is shorter than a real Flip. It comes from no day's puzzle.

1. Narrow piece, as of paperSTRIPthe first answer
2. Parish ministerPRIESTan E arrives
3. Has a goTRIESthe P goes
4. Hold out againstRESISTan S arrives
5. Grows wearyTIRESthe S goes
6. Striped big catsTIGERSa G arrives

STRIP gains an E and rearranges into PRIEST. PRIEST then loses its P to give TRIES, which gains a second S for RESIST. Each short answer in the chain is a long answer with one letter taken away.

Tips

• Look at the long answers first. A short answer is always the long answer beside it with one letter gone.
• Once the answers on both sides of a blank are solved, the keyboard leaves you only the letters of those two words.
• The clue decides between near misses. If two words fit the letters, read the clue again for tense and number.
• The anagram rack is useful here, because the same five or six letters keep coming round in a new order.

Flip in the day's four

Omeletter sets four puzzles a day, chosen from its nine games, and every game comes round at least once in any three days. New puzzles appear at 05:00 UTC, which is mid-afternoon in Sydney and early morning in London.

You start with fifty hints in the app and five on the website, and you earn another for every puzzle you solve. On this website you can play today and the two days before it. The app keeps every day you open while it is free.

Play today's puzzles

On the App Store and Google Play.

The other games

• Fold
• Soufflé
• Roux
• Reduction
• Double Yolk
• Scratch
• Fork
• Lattice

All nine are explained side by side on How to play, and every answer comes from the word list.