Shut the Box rules

The game has been turning up in English and French harbor pubs for centuries, under names like Canoga and Batten Down the Hatches. You'll learn the rules in a single turn: roll two dice, flip down tiles that add up to exactly your roll, and keep going until you can't. Whatever stays open is your penalty points. Below you'll find the complete rules, the notorious one-die rule, the scoring, the best-known variants, and a blank score sheet to print.

What do you need?

• The box with tiles 1 through 9. No box at home? Nine cards or a row of numbers on paper works just as well — cross them out instead of flipping them down.
• Two dice.
• Optionally a score sheet to track the penalty points per round — at the bottom of this page there's one you can print for free.
• 1 or more players. With a group you take turns playing a round; on your own you simply try to beat your own record.

The goal of the game

Shut all nine tiles. If you pull it off, you triumphantly call out "Shut the box!" and you've played the perfect round. Usually you won't — and then the goal is to be left with as few penalty points as possible: every tile that stays open counts against you at the end of your turn.

How a turn works

1. Roll the two dice and add up the pips.
2. Flip down one or more open tiles that together make exactly your roll. Roll an 8, for example, and you may shut tile 8, but also 6 + 2, 5 + 3, or 1 + 7. One combination per roll; once a tile is shut, it stays shut.
3. Roll again and repeat. You keep rolling until no valid combination of open tiles can be made — then your turn ends and the open tiles are your penalty points.

A sample turn: you roll 4 + 5 = 9 and shut tile 9. Then 6 + 2 = 8: tile 8 down. Then 3 + 4 = 7: tile 7 down. Now 7, 8, and 9 are shut and you may continue with one die (see below). You roll 5, 6, and 3 in succession and shut those tiles. Then you roll a 5 — tile 5 is already down, but 1 + 4 also makes 5, so those two flip down. Only tile 2 is still open. You roll a 6, and there's nothing to be made of that with just the 2: turn over, 2 penalty points. So close.

The one-die rule

The rule that sparks the most debate: as soon as tiles 7, 8, and 9 are shut, you may roll one die — you don't have to, you choose before each roll. You'll also come across the same rule in a different wording: as soon as all open tiles show a 6 or lower, you may choose between one die or two. That's exactly the same moment, just phrased differently.

As long as tile 7, 8, or 9 is still open, you must roll two dice. A single die can show at most 6 pips, after all, and the high tiles could never be shut again.

Scoring

When your turn is over, add up the numbers on all open tiles: those are your penalty points for that round. If the 3 and the 5 are still open, you write down 8 penalty points. Get everything shut and you score 0 points — and under most house rules that instantly wins you the whole round.

The most common scoring over multiple rounds: everyone plays a round in turn, the penalty points pile up, and whoever reaches 45 penalty points in total is out. The last player standing wins. (45 is no accident: it's exactly the sum of tiles 1 through 9 — one maximally failed round.)

The traditional pub scoring exists too, as a variant: you read the open numbers strung together as one number. If the 1, 2, and 5 are open, your score isn't 8 but 125. Lowest number wins — and leaving one high tile open suddenly hurts a lot more.

Playing with 9, 10, or 12 tiles?

The classic edition has nine tiles, but in stores you'll also come across versions that run to 10 or even to 12. The rules are identical — the one-die rule too stays "everything above 6 must be shut" — a round just takes longer because more tiles have to go down.

Variants

• Golf — agree on a fixed number of rounds (nine "holes", for example); whoever has the lowest total after the last round wins.
• Missionary — your score isn't the sum of the open tiles but the count: three tiles open is 3 points, no matter how high they are.
• Unlucky Seven — a roll of exactly 7 ends your turn on the spot, no matter how well you were doing.
• Lucky Number 7 — quick mini-variant: only tile 7 is open, and whoever rolls a 7 first flips it down and wins.
• 2 to Go / 3 to Go — a designated tile (the 2 or the 3, respectively) must be part of your winning combination, or "Shut the box!" doesn't count.
• At most two tiles per roll — combinations of three or more tiles are not allowed; putting away a roll of 12 as 1 + 2 + 9 is out.
• 1-on-1 — duel variant: the tiles you shut, your opponent tries to flip open again in their turns. If you get the box fully shut, you win; if they get it fully open again, they do.
• Jackpot — choose per roll whether to use the sum or the two dice separately: with a 6 and a 2 you shut tile 8, or tiles 6 and 2 both.

Strategy: shut the high tiles first

Shut the Box is mostly luck, but choosing which tiles to flip down genuinely matters. The core: 7 is the most likely sum with two dice — 6 of the 36 combinations, about 16.7% — while high sums like 11 and 12 are rare. You can read exactly how that probability distribution works on the page about dice probability.

That's why it pays to look at the high tiles first on every roll: a 9 can only be shut with a sum of 9 or higher, while you'll get plenty more chances at the 1 and the 2. What's more: the sooner 7, 8, and 9 are shut, the sooner you enter the one-die phase — and with one die, the low tiles suddenly become very reachable.

A nice bonus: kids who play Shut the Box spend the whole time splitting and adding numbers without it feeling like a math lesson for even a second. You'll find more games like that among the dice games for kids.

Blank score sheet to print

If you play the 45-penalty-point scoring over multiple rounds, a score sheet is a handy thing to have. Print a blank one below for up to three players and ten rounds: note the penalty points and the running total for each round. Whoever hits 45 is out. Click the button to print just the score sheet — the rest of the page stays out of the way.

Fancy another pub game to go with it? Check out Mia, or browse the complete overview of dice games.