A board game born in a Mexican prison is bringing people from all walks of life together

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Rosa María Espinosa joined nearly 80 men playing “polana” under a park gazebo in Mexico City’s Roma neighborhood on Sunday afternoon. is a board game that requires quick thinking and was born in the city’s prison nearly a century ago.

Espinoza smoked and blew smoke rings, laughing with the others. She will be the only woman competing today.

While the game’s origins still carry a stigma, it’s growing in popularity as people from all backgrounds discover its appeal.

“It’s a lot of adrenaline,” Espinoza said. “But sometimes the dice are not lucky.”

fight for freedom

Poleana is played on a square wooden box with a depression in the center for rolling the dice. Four players, each with four pieces, use specific dice combinations and calculations to move pieces from starting positions around the board and off the board through designated corners while strategically blocking their opponents.

The board symbolizes the boundaries of the prison, and escaping before anyone else and winning freedom—even if only symbolically—is the goal of the game.

“People often say, ‘These guys know how to play because they’ve been to prison,'” Espinoza, 62, said. “Thank God I’ve never been, but I love playing.”

This afternoon’s game marked the first time she’s played against someone outside the circle of relatives or friends she usually plays with on Tuesdays and Sundays at the apartment complex’s chapel.

ancient roots

Alejandro Olmos, an archaeologist and anthropologist at the National Institute of Anthropology and History who specializes in Mesoamerican games, has studied and played Polana games for many years.

He traces the game’s origins to the Indian game chaupar (or pachisi), with archaeological evidence dating back to 600 AD.

In the United States, game manufacturer Parker Brothers launched a similar game based on Eleanor H. Porter’s 1913 novel Pollyanna.

The game spread among Mexico City’s jails sometime around 1940, and Lecumberri Prison (whose architecture echoes the geometry of a Polish chessboard) was likely its original breeding ground. It was here that it was renamed polena and accepted a new set of rules.

“All cultures have a process called adoption-conversion,” Olmos said. In Mexico, “the game reflects the hardships of prison life: mistakes are not forgiven.”

Polena breaks out

Six years ago, Jonathan Rulleri started a family business promoting polena with the goal of bringing people from all walks of life together.

One of the early challenges was establishing common rules for a game that “starts at the bottom and spreads from prisons to streets and from streets to neighborhoods,” said Rulairi, 37.

After he was released from prison, he struggled to find work, a common problem for those who are incarcerated.

He launched a burrito delivery service with his wife, but the business wasn’t successful, leading him to reluctantly accept a commission to make Polanna boards for an acquaintance. Then another commission came in – and he started posting his work on social media.

“We gave up on the taco idea and started making tacos,” Luleri said.

The resulting enterprise, Poleana Cana’da Frogs – a name derived from prison slang that describes the way the pieces jump across the board – has organized 55 Poleana tournaments in public spaces to date, emphasizing family-friendliness. The atmosphere explicitly excludes betting, a common practice in other Polana events.

“We want to remove the stigma that this game is a game for prisoners or slackers,” Lulleri said.

In the 1980s, the movement began to spread beyond prisons and became popular in many of Mexico City’s poor neighborhoods.

The cradle of street commerce and boxing in the capital, Tepito is one of the neighborhoods where people are almost always seen playing Polish ball. On a handball court, men of all ages hit balls against the wall, while others on the sidelines played Poland ball late into the night.

Fernando Rojas, 57, learned Polish when he was 18 but honed his talent in prison. These games can last for hours and are played continuously inside the prison.

“It really helps you escape the reality of being a prisoner, and that’s where it starts,” Rojas said. “No one understands what it’s like to be a prisoner… You don’t see the end of your sentence. Some people have to take drugs to escape reality. Polena is very important in prison.

Now, the game has become therapy for Rojas: a way to relieve stress and avoid family conflict. He packed the dice and chess pieces in a small plastic bag and played religiously on the handball court with his friends.

“Whether it’s in prison or on the streets, we have problems,” he said. “So a lot of people come here to distract themselves.”

In Poleana, plays and number combinations have names. For example, a roll of six is ​​a “six-pack” because that’s what it looks like from above. Rolling doubles elicits cheers of “pares y no pares,” a play on the Spanish word meaning “double,” without stopping.

While chance is important, the math is also key.

That’s why Diego González and Dana López are excited that their 7-year-old son Kevin is learning to play the polana. He was having fun and calculating faster and faster.

González, 33, who also produces POLEANA panels through his family business, Poleanas Iztapalapa, found a creative outlet ten years ago after serving a three-year prison sentence. He creates personalized boards with details like flash lights and Bluetooth speakers.

His wooden boards are popular gifts for weddings, birthdays and Christmas. Some special committees require that images of deceased loved ones be added to the recessed areas of the dice. Others want to decorate the boards they give to their children with playful characters.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, sales surged as people who were cooped up at home found POLEANA a great way to pass the time.

“Two or three hours of numbers and fiddling, it all worked really well for them,” he said. “They realize it’s not a bad game, it’s a strategy game that brings families together.”

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