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Shut the Box is a traditional pub dice game played on a box of numbered tiles: you roll two dice and shut any combination of open tiles adding up to your roll, and your turn ends when you cannot match a roll. Your score is the sum of the tiles left open, the lowest score wins, and clearing every tile is a perfect game — “shutting the box”.
This version gives you both standard boards (9 and 12 tiles), a daily challenge where everyone gets the same dice, and an optional hint engine showing the mathematically optimal move for your exact position. Shut the Box is a solved game, and the same solver that powers those hints produced the numbers on our strategy and odds page: optimal play averages 11.66 points on the nine-tile board and shuts the box roughly once every 14 games.
Tap Roll dice to throw two six-sided dice. Their total is what you must match with tiles.
Tap any combination of open tiles that adds up to exactly your total — a roll of 8 can shut 8, or 1+7, or 3+5, or 1+3+4 — then confirm to shut them.
When all your remaining tiles are 6 or below the game switches to a single die automatically, which gives you a much better chance of matching.
Your turn ends when no combination of open tiles can make your roll. Your score is the sum of the tiles still open, and the lowest score wins.
Clearing the whole board scores zero and is called shutting the box. With optimal play it happens about once in every 14 games on the nine-tile board.