Scroll · 6 November 2026

Closing the gates well

Which gates to shut first in Close the Gates, why the high ones usually go early, and when the rule bends.

The rule of thumb

In Close the Gates you throw two dice and close open gates that add up to the throw. When you have a choice, close the highest gates you can. A throw of nine is usually best spent on the nine itself rather than on the five and the four, or the one, three and five.

The reason is that low gates are flexible and high gates are not. Small numbers can be combined to match almost any throw later in the round, while a nine can only ever be closed by a total of nine or more. Keeping your small gates open keeps more future throws useful.

The switch to one die

Once the seven, eight and nine are all closed, the next throws use one die instead of two. That matters, because one die can only show one to six, and the totals you need at the end of a round are small. Getting the three high gates shut is often the turning point of a good round.

When the rule bends

Sometimes splitting a throw is better than closing a single high gate. With the six, seven and eight still open and a throw of eight, closing the eight looks natural, but it can leave you needing both the six and the seven to come up. The exact answer depends on everything still open.

That is what Show the best gates is for. It does not use a rule of thumb. It looks at every possible way the rest of the round could go and picks the choice that brings back the most on average. You can follow it every time, compare it with your own pick, or ignore it.

What good play changes, and what it does not

Playing well raises how much comes back over many rounds, but it does not remove chance. Even with perfect choices, a round where every gate closes happens about seven times in a hundred. Most rounds end with a few pips open, and some end after the first throws. That is the game.