Recently, I’ve started watching repeats of a British game show called Winning Combination that aired in 2020 and 2021 and in which nine contestants, numbered 1 to 9, answer questions in an attempt to become a part of a “final combination”.

That combination is simply the four numbers associated with the successful contestants and becomes the prize pool to be divided evenly amongst them if they complete a final challenge.

Over the last four blog posts we’ve been slowly creating an optimal set of strategies for playing the version of Shut The Box that we introduced in the first blog.

This is the fourth in a series of posts that investigates the creation of an optimal strategy for the game Shut the Box, and I’d recommend you read the first three blogs before continuing, starting with Part 1.

This is the third in a series of posts that investigates the creation of an optimal strategy for the game Shut the Box, and I’d recommend you read the first two blogs before continuing, starting with Part 1.

This is the second in a series of posts that investigates the creation of an optimal strategy for the game Shut the Box, the first of which I’d recommend you read before continuing.

I’ve long been fascinated about how computers can be used to determine optimal - or even just good - strategies for playing games with well-defined rules, and in this blog I’ll be working through the creation of such a strategy for a game sometimes known as Shut The Box.