Play Shut the Box Online

What Is Shut the Box?

Shut the Box is a one-minute dice game played on a small wooden tray with nine hinged tiles numbered 1 to 9. You roll two dice, add them up, and flip down any tiles that add up to exactly that total. Then you roll again. Sooner or later you throw a total that the remaining tiles cannot make, and the game is over: add up the open tiles and that is your score. Low is good. Zero, with every tile flipped, means you have shut the box, which is rare enough that pubs used to pay out on it.

It is the simplest of the classic pub dice games, quicker even than Pig, and yet almost every roll offers a choice. Should a 9 shut the 9, or the 4 and the 5, or the 2, 3 and 4? Those choices are the whole game, and they are far from obvious. The rest of this guide explains the rules, works through the arithmetic, and tells you exactly how often the box can be shut when you play well.

A Short History of Shut the Box

Almost everything written about the game’s origins is folklore, and it is worth saying so plainly. The popular story is that the game was played by fishermen and sailors in Normandy and the Channel Islands, who wagered on it at the end of the day’s work, and some retellings push its beginnings back to the twelfth century. Others describe it as an eighteenth-century tavern game. None of this is documented; games historian James Masters records these as traditional accounts collected from Normandy and the Channel Islands, not as verified history. A more modest claim, noted in Arthur Taylor’s 1976 book Pub Games, is that it dates to at least Napoleonic times.

The paper trail begins much later. One account credits a Channel Islander known as “Chalky” Towbridge with bringing the game to southern England in 1958. A 1967 edition of Brewing Review described it as native to the Channel Islands and noted it being played in Manchester pubs in the mid-1960s. From then on the game was a fixture of the British pub, played for small stakes alongside darts and dominoes, and drinks companies handed out branded sets as promotions. Jaques of London was among the first companies to sell it commercially in Britain.

Along the way the game collected other names. In the United States it was sold as Canoga, sometimes with ten or twelve tiles and a gambling payout for a full shut, and you will also find it boxed as Batten Down the Hatches, Jackpot and High Rollers. Whatever the box says, the rules inside are the same nine tiles and two dice you can play at the top of this page.

Shut the Box Rules

Equipment

• A box or tray with nine tiles numbered 1 to 9, each of which can be flipped down (“shut”)
• Two six-sided dice
• Optionally a dice cup, and in the pub, a small stake per player

Object of the Game

Shut as many tiles as you can before the dice beat you. The lowest score wins, and shutting all nine tiles wins on the spot.

How a Turn Works

1. All tiles open. Every tile starts standing up.
2. Roll two dice and add them together.
3. Shut tiles that add up to the total. You may flip down one tile equal to the total, or any combination of open tiles whose sum is exactly the total. On a roll of 10 you could shut the 1 + 9, 2 + 8, 3 + 7, 4 + 6, 1 + 2 + 7, 1 + 3 + 6, 1 + 4 + 5, 2 + 3 + 5 or 1 + 2 + 3 + 4. You must shut something if you can; you may not pass.
4. Roll again. Keep going for as long as you can make a legal move.
5. Roll one die once 7, 8 and 9 are shut. When the three highest tiles are down, you may choose to throw a single die instead of two on any later roll. Some sets restrict this to when the open tiles total 6 or less; ours uses the 7-8-9 rule.
6. The turn ends when you roll a total that no combination of open tiles can make. Add up the open tiles: that is your score.

Scoring

In a multiplayer game each player takes a full turn in sequence, and the lowest score takes the round. Playing solo, as you do here, you are chasing a low score and, above all, the shut box.

Worked Examples

• First roll: 9. Options: 9; 1 + 8; 2 + 7; 3 + 6; 4 + 5; 1 + 2 + 6; 1 + 3 + 5; 2 + 3 + 4. Shut the 9. It is the single hardest tile to remove, made only by totals of 9 (4 ways in 36) or as part of a 10, 11 or 12.
• Second roll: 12 with 1–8 open. Options: 4 + 8; 5 + 7; 1 + 3 + 8; 1 + 4 + 7; 1 + 5 + 6; 2 + 3 + 7; 2 + 4 + 6; 3 + 4 + 5; 1 + 2 + 4 + 5; 1 + 2 + 3 + 6. Take 4 + 8: it removes the 8 with a two-tile combination and keeps 7 for a later 7.
• Third roll: 7 with 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7 open. Shut the 7. You now have 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 open and the one-die option unlocked.
• Fourth roll, one die: 6. Shut the 6. A single die of 5 then shuts the 5, leaving 1, 2 and 3. From here one die can never miss: a 1, 2 or 3 shuts that tile, a 4 shuts 1 + 3, a 5 shuts 2 + 3 and a 6 shuts all three at once. Two dice would be the mistake, since any total above 6 is dead.
• A roll of 2 with only 1 and 3 open. The 2 tile is already shut and there is only one 1 tile, so no combination makes 2. The turn ends and you score 4. This is where most near-misses die.

The Odds of Shutting the Box

The two-dice totals are not equal. A 7 comes up 6 times in 36 throws; a 2 or a 12 comes up once. The board, meanwhile, offers more ways to make the middle totals. This table gives, for a full board, how many tile combinations make each total and how likely you are to roll it.

Every total from 2 to 12 can be made on a full board, so you can never go out on the first roll. Trouble starts when the board thins. Once only low tiles remain, the two-dice totals of 7 to 12 are all dead, which is why the one-die option matters so much.

How often can the box be shut? This is a solved problem. Working backwards through every possible board (there are 512 of them) and every roll, we computed the win probability with perfect choices:

• Under the rules used on this page (one die optional once 7, 8 and 9 are shut): 9.76%, about 1 game in 10. This matches the 9.7614% figure published by Bill Butler in his Shut the Box analysis, which uses the “open tiles total 6 or less” rule instead; optimal play never prefers a single die while the open tiles total more than 6, so the two rules give the same result.
• If you must always throw two dice: 7.14%, exactly 1 in 14.
• Wikipedia quotes a success rate of 7.99% for one fixed rule of thumb (always prefer the highest tiles, without looking ahead) in a variant of the game, so judgment on the marginal rolls is worth roughly two extra shut boxes per hundred games.

Real players who do not plan ahead land well below all of these, which is why the pub tradition treats a shut box as an event.

Shut the Box Strategy

1. Kill the 7, 8 and 9 first

The three highest tiles are the enemy. The 9 can only be shut by a 9, 10, 11 or 12, which together arrive on 10 rolls in 36. Once 7, 8 and 9 are gone every remaining tile can be shut by a single die, and your win chance jumps. Almost every good decision follows from this one rule.

2. Use as few tiles as possible

Shutting the 8 with a single tile keeps more small tiles available for later totals. In general, prefer one tile to two and two to three, because low tiles are your flexible change: a 1, 2 and 3 in hand can turn a 6, 7 or 8 into a legal move later.

3. Prefer the combination that leaves the most future options

When two choices both shut a high tile, count how many totals the remaining board can still make. Leaving 1, 2, 4 and 6 open (which can make every total from 1 to 13) is much healthier than leaving 3 and 5, which make only 3, 5 and 8.

4. Keep the 1 and 2 as long as you sensibly can

They are the glue that lets odd totals be made. The classic losing position is having 1 and 2 open at the end and rolling nothing but 3s to 6s. Better to have used them while the big tiles were still absorbing most totals.

5. Switch to one die at the right time

Once 7, 8 and 9 are shut, one die is usually right when the open tiles are all 6 or under and few in number, because two dice can only produce 2 to 12 and half of those totals are now useless. Two dice remain better in one specific case: when the open tiles add up to a two-dice total you could shut all at once, such as 4 and 6 open with a 10 on the way. The hint button in the game above shows a good move if you get stuck.

6. Decide by expected score, not just by win chance

If you are playing for lowest score in a group rather than for the shut, protect against disaster: shutting 9 leaves at worst a 36-point board, and each high tile shut caps your worst case. With the 9, 8 and 7 gone your maximum possible score is 21.

7. Learn the dead totals

With only 1 to 6 open, a two-dice 7 or higher is a wasted roll unless you have enough small tiles to make it. Know which totals are dead for your board before you choose one die or two.

8. Play it fast

Because the shut itself is roughly a one-in-ten event even with perfect play, the practical skill is playing many quick, careful games. A round takes under a minute, which is why the game became a pub staple.

Common Mistakes

• Shutting 4 and 5 on a 9 while the 9 tile is still open. It feels productive; it is the single most expensive habit in the game.
• Burning the 1, 2 and 3 early on totals that a single high tile could have covered.
• Rolling two dice with only small tiles left, when a single die would have had a real chance of hitting.
• Rolling one die too early, when the open tiles could be cleared in one throw of two dice.
• Forgetting that tiles can be combined in threes and fours. A 10 can be 1 + 2 + 3 + 4; players often miss the four-tile options and end a turn that could have continued.

Variants and House Rules

• Golf. Several rounds, adding your open-tile totals; lowest cumulative score wins. Good for a group.
• Missionary. Score the number of open tiles rather than their sum.
• Digits scoring. Read the open tiles as a number: 2 and 5 open scores 25. Common in pubs because a shut box is still zero.
• Canoga (US). Ten or twelve tiles, sometimes with a gambling payout: shut the box and the pot is yours.
• Twelve-tile boxes. Tiles 1 to 12, which makes a full shut considerably harder and usually requires the one-die rule to be dropped.
• Jackpot / Thai rule. Instead of rolling one die when 7, 8 and 9 are shut, some sets allow it only when the open tiles total 6 or less. As explained above, this makes no difference to the best achievable win rate.
• Two-player duel. Both players use the same box; the second player must beat the first player’s score. Try Ship Captain Crew for a similar turn-and-target rhythm with five dice.
• Ten tiles (1–10). Played by some Scandinavian families; the 10 tile can only be shut by a 10, 11 or 12.

Fans of quick, low-rules dice games might also like Left Center Right for a group and Pig for the same one-die tension. For a scorecard with more decisions, move up to Yahtzee.

Glossary

• Shut / Flip: To turn a tile face down so it no longer counts.
• Shut the box: All nine tiles down, score zero.
• Open tiles: Tiles still standing at the end of a turn; their sum is your score.
• One-die rule: The option to throw a single die once 7, 8 and 9 (or, in some sets, all tiles above 6) are shut.
• Dead total: A dice total that no combination of open tiles can make.
• Golf: A multi-round variant scoring the total of open tiles across rounds.
• Canoga: The American name for the game, usually with ten or twelve tiles.

Play Shut the Box Online on Dice.now

The game at the top of this page is a solo Shut the Box with nine tiles and two dice. Roll, then tap the tiles you want to shut and press Shut Tiles; the game highlights only tiles that can still be part of a legal combination for your total, narrowing the choices as you select, and it counts every combination for you. If no combination exists the round ends automatically and your score is the sum of the open tiles. Once 7, 8 and 9 are shut a Roll One Die button appears next to the two-dice button, and a Show Hint button will mark one good combination if you are unsure. Your lowest score and your total number of shut boxes are saved on your device only. Ready? Roll the dice.