Shut the Box Rules — How to Play and Keep Score

Overview

Shut the Box is a pub game from northern France, played on a shallow wooden box with hinged numbered tiles along one edge and a felt tray for two dice. A turn is a small solo puzzle: roll, cover tiles that match, and keep going until the dice give you something you cannot cover. Whatever is still standing is charged against you, so the game rewards choosing the right combination early rather than the obvious one.

Setup

Agree the size of the box, how many rounds you will play, and whether a single die is allowed near the end. Decide the playing order — the box is passed around, so only one player is ever rolling. All tiles start standing.

How to play

On your turn, roll both dice and add them. Cover any set of standing tiles whose numbers add up to that total. A roll of 8 can be answered with the 8 alone, or 7+1, 6+2, 5+3, or 5+2+1 — anything that adds up, using each tile once. Roll again and repeat. Your turn ends the moment you roll a total you cannot make from the tiles still standing. If the single-die option is switched on, you may choose one die instead of two once the condition is met, and you must decide before rolling.

Scoring

Write one number per player per round.

• Add the standing tiles (default): tiles 2, 5 and 7 left standing score 14.
• Read as digits: the same tiles score 257; tiles 5, 6 and 8 score 568. Always read them in ascending order.
• Count the tiles: 2, 5 and 7 standing score 3.

Covering every tile is shutting the box. Depending on the setting it either ends the match on the spot with that player as the winner, or scores 0 for the round and play continues.

Scores accumulate across rounds and are never negative. The maximum possible round score is 45 on a nine-tile box, 55 on ten and 78 on twelve.

Ending the game

After the agreed number of rounds, the lowest cumulative total wins. Equal totals share the win unless the group plays a decider round. If a knock-out score is set, a player whose total reaches it is eliminated at once, and the match runs until one player remains or the rounds run out. If shutting the box is set to end the match, that beats everything, whatever the totals say.

Common variations

Some tables play best-of-one instead of a fixed round count, others play to a knock-out ceiling. Digit scoring is popular in bars because a single bad turn is close to fatal. Ten and twelve tile boxes are often played with three dice, which speeds turns up and makes a shut box a realistic goal rather than a legend.