On a Sunday afternoon in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood, Rosa María Espinosa joins about 80 men in a park to play poleana. The almost 100-year-old game was created in a Mexican prison and requires luck and thinking skill.
Poleana still carries a stigma connected to its birth as a prison game. However, it is growing popular as people from different backgrounds discover its appeal.
Espinosa says she like the excitement of the game. “But sometimes,” she adds, “the dice aren’t lucky.”
Playing for freedom
Poleana is played with four people and a square wooden box with a sunken center for dice rolling. Each player has four pieces that they race around the box. They use dice combinations and math to govern how to move their pieces strategically. At the same time, they must also try to block moves by their competitors.
The board represents the limits of a prison and getting out of it before others. Winning freedom is the game’s goal.
“People used to say, ‘these folks know how to play because they’ve been to prison,’” said the 62-year-old Espinosa. “Thank God I’ve never been, but I like to play.”
That was the first time she had competed against anyone besides her family or friends. She usually plays on Tuesdays and Sundays in the small church in her apartment building.
Ancient roots
Alejandro Olmos studies ancient cultures at the National Anthropology and History School. He has studied and played poleana for years.
He has followed the game’s roots to the Indian game chaupar (or pachisi). He found evidence of the connection dating back 1400 years. After British colonization of India, the game spread to Western countries under different names, including Ludo, Aggravation and Parcheesi.
In 1915, the American company Parker Brothers marketed a similar game. Parker Brothers named it “Pollyanna” after a popular 1913 children’s book by Eleanor H. Porter.
Sometime around 1940, the game spread to prisons in Mexico City, including Lecumberri. That prison’s physical structure is very similar to the design of the game board. So experts say Lecumberri may have been the birthplace of modern poleana and its new set of rules.
Olmos said that in Mexico, “the game reflects the roughness of prison life: mistakes are not pardoned.”
Poleana breaks out
Six years ago, Jonathan Rulleri started a family business marketing poleana. His goal was to bring together people from different backgrounds.
One of the early difficulties was establishing common rules for the game, which in Rulleri’s words, “has been spreading from below, from prison to the street and from the street into neighborhoods.”
The 37-year-old man learned to play while serving a sentence in a prison outside Mexico City, the capital. After his release, he struggled to find work.
He and his wife launched a food delivery service. However, the business proved unsuccessful. This led him to accept an offer to make a poleana board for a friend. Then came another offer. Soon he began to post his creations on social media. He said they gave up the food business and started making poleanas instead.
The business, Poleana Cana’da Frogs, has organized 55 poleana tournaments. They are family-friendly, including people of all ages.
“We want to remove the game’s stigma …” Rulleri said.
In the 1980s, the game began to spread beyond the prisons and into Mexico City’s neighborhoods. Tepito is one of the neighborhoods where people are almost always playing poleana.
Fernando Rojas is 57 years-old and learned poleana when he was 18. But it was in prison where he really got good at the game.
“It really helps you escape the reality of being a prisoner and that’s how it 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 do drugs as their way to escape. Poleana is very important in prison.”
Now the game helps Rojas cope with life’s difficulties. “We all have problems, in prison and in the street,” he said. “So a lot of people come here for a distraction.”
While luck plays a part in the game, math understanding is also important.
That is why Diego González and Dana López are very happy that their 7-year-old son Kevin is learning to play poleana. He has fun and his math skills are improving.
González also runs a family business making poleana boards. He started the business after serving a three-year sentence 10 years ago. His boards are popular birthday and Christmas gifts. Some are personalized and might include images of loved ones who have died, or playful pictures for players who are children.
Sales of the board game sharply increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. People were stuck at home and found that the game was a good way to pass the time.
“They realized it’s not a bad game," González said, “it’s a game of strategy and getting the family together.”
I’m Anna Matteo.
And I’m Mario Ritter Jr.
The Associated Press reported this story. Anna Matteo adapted it for VOA Learning English.
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Words in This Story
stigma – n. a set of negative and unfair beliefs that a society or group of people have about something
dice – n. small cubes marked on each face with from one to six spots
strategically – adv. to use a careful plan or method to achieve a goal : strategy – n. the art of making or employing plans or tricks to achieve a goal
reflect – v. to make (something) manifest or apparent: to show
delivery – n. the transport and handing over of something to someone
tournament – n. a series of games or contests that make up a single unit of competition
distraction – n. something that directs one's attention away from something else
Forum