Shut the Box
Shut the Box Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Object
The goal is to finish with the lowest score. A player who manages to close every numbered tile wins the game outright and immediately, regardless of anyone else's score.
Setup
Shut the Box is played on a box or board fitted with a row of hinged or sliding tiles numbered 1 through 12 (some sets run only 1 through 9). At the start of the game, every tile is open, showing its number face up. Play is usually done with two ordinary six-sided dice.
Game Play
Players take turns in order. On a turn, a player rolls the dice into the box and then closes ("shuts") tiles whose numbers add up to the total rolled — this can be a single tile equal to the roll, or any combination of open tiles that sum to it.
For example, a roll of 8 could be closed as the single tile 8; as 1 and 7; as 2 and 6; as 3 and 5; as 1, 2 and 5; or as 1, 3 and 4 — whichever combination of still-open tiles the player chooses, so long as every tile used is still open.
A common house rule: once every open tile totals 6 or less, the player may choose to roll only one die instead of two for the rest of that turn.
After closing tiles, the same player rolls again and repeats the process, continuing to close numbers turn after turn until a roll comes up that can no longer be matched by any combination of the tiles still open. At that point the player's turn ends.
Some sets instead restrict a player to closing only the exact two numbers shown on the dice (either one of them, or both), rather than any combination that sums to the total — check the rules that came with your particular set if the two forms disagree.
Scoring and End of Round
When a player's turn ends because no legal move remains, that player's score for the round is the sum of the numbers still showing on the open tiles. For instance, if tiles 2, 4 and 6 are still open and the player cannot use the next roll, the score is 12 (2 + 4 + 6).
If a player closes every tile before running out of legal moves, the box is "shut." That player wins the game immediately, and no further scoring is needed.
Once a player's turn ends, the tiles are reset to all-open, and play passes to the next player, who repeats the same process. After everyone has taken one turn, the player with the lowest score wins. If nobody shuts the box, the lowest score wins the round; if two or more players tie for lowest, common practice is to re-ante (when playing for stakes) and start a fresh round, with the tied player who rolled first in the previous round leading off.
Variations
Shut the Box has many house rules and regional variants. Common ones include:
- Multi-round scoring: rather than a single round deciding the winner, players carry their scores forward across several rounds, either playing to a fixed number of rounds or eliminating players once their cumulative score passes a set limit (such as 50), with the last player remaining declared the winner.
- Dice-only closing: some editions require closing only the two individual die faces shown (either or both) rather than any combination that sums to the roll.
- Single-die endgame: allowing a player to switch to one die once the sum of the remaining open tiles is 6 or lower, speeding up the close of a nearly-shut box.
- Wagering: in its traditional pub form, players ante a stake before the round, and the loser (or all other players, in a "shut the box" win) pays out according to house custom.