MEXICO CITY (AP) — On a Sunday afternoon in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood, Rosa María Espinosa joins nearly 80 men under a park pavilion to play poleana, a board game requiring mental dexterity that originated in the prisons of the city almost a century ago.
Espinosa blows smoke rings from his cigarette and laughs with the others. Today, she will be the only woman playing.
Although the game’s origins still carry a stigma, it is experiencing a moment where people from diverse backgrounds are discovering its appeal.
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“It’s a lot of adrenaline,” Espinosa said. “But sometimes dice don’t bring luck.”
Play for freedom
Poleana is played on a square wooden box with a recessed center for rolling the dice. Four players, each with four pieces, race to navigate the board, using specific dice combinations and calculations to move their pieces from their starting position, around the board and through their designated corner, while strategically blocking their opponents.
The board symbolizes the confines of the prison, and getting out before others, gaining freedom – even if only metaphorically – is the aim of the game.
“People said, ‘These people know how to play because they’ve been to prison,’” Espinosa, 62, said. “Thank God I’ve never been there, but I like to play.”
This afternoon’s tournament marks the first time she has played someone outside of her circle of relatives or friends with whom she usually plays on Tuesdays and Sundays in the small chapel of her apartment complex.
Ancient roots
Alejandro Olmos, an archaeologist and anthropologist specializing in Mesoamerican games at the National School of Anthropology and History, has been studying and playing poleana for years.
It traces the origins of the game to Indian chaupar (or pachisi), with archaeological evidence dating back to 600 AD. After British colonization, the game spread to various Western countries under different names, including Ludo, Aggravation and Parcheesi.
In the United States, game maker Parker Brothers marketed a similar game, based on Eleanor H. Porter’s 1913 novel “Pollyanna.”
Around 1940, the game spread to Mexico City’s prisons, with Lecumberri, a prison whose very architecture echoed the geometry of the poleana board, likely serving as its initial breeding ground. It was here that it was renamed poleana and given a new set of rules.
“All cultures have a process called adoption-transformation,” Olmos said. In Mexico, “the game reflects the harshness of prison life: mistakes are not forgiven.”
Poleana bursts
Six years ago, Jonathan Rulleri started a family business promoting poleana with the aim of bringing people from different backgrounds together.
One of the first challenges was establishing common rules for this game, “which has spread from below, from prison to the street and from the street to the neighborhoods,” Rulleri, 37, said. who learned to play while incarcerated. the State of Mexico, outside the capital.
After his release, he struggled to find work, a common problem for those who have been imprisoned.
He started a taco delivery service alongside his wife, but the venture was unsuccessful, leading him to reluctantly accept an order to make a poleana board for an acquaintance. Then came another order – and he began posting his creations on social media.
“We ditched the taco idea and started making poleanas,” Rulleri said.
The resulting company, Poleana Cana’da Frogs — a name derived from a slang word meaning prison and a description of how the pieces jump around the board — has so far hosted 55 poleana tournaments in public spaces, emphasizing a family atmosphere and explicitly excluding betting, a common practice in other poleana events.
“We want to remove the stigma from the game that it was a game for prisoners or lazy people,” Rulleri said.
In the 1980s, the game began to spread beyond prisons and find traction in many of Mexico City’s roughest neighborhoods.
Tepito, the birthplace of street trading and boxing in the capital, is one of the neighborhoods where you almost always find people playing poleana. On a handball court where men of all ages hit a ball against a wall, others, on the edge of the field, play poleana until late in the evening.
Fernando Rojas, 57, learned poleana at the age of 18, but it was in prison that he honed his skills. The games, which can last for hours, take place one after the other in prison.
“It really helps you escape the reality of being a prisoner and that’s how it all started,” Rojas said. “No one can understand what it’s like to be a prisoner… you don’t see the end of your sentence. There are people who have to take drugs to escape. Poleana is very important in prison.
Now, gaming serves as therapy for Rojas: a way to relieve stress and avoid family conflicts. He carries his dice and pieces in a small plastic bag, religiously joining his friends on the handball court to play.
“We all have problems, in prison and on the streets,” he said. “So a lot of people come here for fun.”
In Poleana, games and number combinations have names. For example, a roll of six is a “six pack” because that’s what it looks like from above. Throwing doubles provokes celebratory cries of “pares y no pares,” a Spanish pun for pairs and not stopping. With luck, you might get a piece three-quarters of the way around the board.
If chance plays a role, mathematical calculation is also essential.
That’s why Diego González and Dana López are excited that their 7-year-old son Kevin is learning to play poleana. He’s having fun and he’s going faster with his calculations.
González, 33, also makes poleana boards through his family business, Poleanas Iztapalapa, finding a creative outlet after serving a three-year sentence a decade ago. It creates custom boards with details like strobe lights and Bluetooth speakers.
His boards are popular gifts for weddings, birthdays and Christmas. Some special commissions have specifically asked to include images of deceased loved ones in the sunken area where the dice are rolled. Others want playful characters to decorate the boards they give to their children.
Sales surged during the COVID-19 pandemic, when people were cooped up at home and found poleana a good way to pass the time.
“Two, three hours of counting and throwing, and it was all really nice for them,” he said. “They realized it wasn’t a bad game, it was a game of strategy and bringing families together.”
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