Mexico (game)

Mexico is an elimination-style dice game, in which several players agree to play a set number of rounds. After each round, one player is eliminated. When all players but one have been eliminated, the remaining player wins the game. Owing to its extremely simple play-structure, it is generally pursued as a method of gambling, whereby the final remaining player wins the amount of money wagered by each person who was eliminated in earlier rounds. A variant of the drinking game liar's dice known as Mexican or Mia uses similar dice rolls, but has very different game mechanics.

The game requires two dice and a surface upon which to roll them. Ideally, this surface will have a barrier of some sort on at least one side, off of which to bounce the dice during rolling and to prevent spillage.

At the start of play, all players wager a set amount of money, and at the end of each round, the player with the lowest roll puts a predetermined portion of that money into the pot. For instance, players might start out with twenty-five dollars each, having agreed in advance that each round will cost the loser of that round five dollars. The game ends when enough rounds have been played that only one player with any money remains, at which point the pot is his. Thus, following the above example, three players with five betting units of five dollars each might play a minimum of ten and a maximum of fourteen rounds before a winner emerges.

Rolling order for the first round is determined by rolling one die, with the player rolling highest going first, followed by the player to his or her left, and so on until a full clockwise rotation has been completed. This marks the end of the round. At this point, whoever has rolled for the lowest result puts his or her portion of money into the pot, and another round begins. Regardless of who rolled last, the losing player becomes first to roll the dice on the following round. During regular play (i.e., when not rolling for lead spot), two dice are always used.

The lead player can roll the dice up to three times, and the amount of rolls he or she takes will determine how many rolls subsequent players may take in that round. However, only the last result of a player’s turn counts as his or her final score for that turn, rather than the best result of two or three rolls. Thus, it is in the leader's interest not to roll the dice more than is necessary, as doing so will give opponents more opportunities to beat what might turn out to be a low result.

Two dice are used, and on each roll their separate numerical values are combined into a two-digit number, assigning a tens-column value to the higher of the two dice and a ones-column value to the lower. Thus, a roll of 4-2 would translate into a result of forty-two, a roll of 4-5 would be fifty-four, a roll of 6-5 would be sixty-five, and so on. There are two exceptions to this ranking scheme. One is doubles, which are ranked extra-numerically (6-6 ranks highest, with 5-5 just below it, and so on down to 1-1), and are worth more than any mixed roll. Therefore, the highest possible numerical value would be sixty-five, which itself would rank just below 1-1. The other exception to the rule of numeric value is a roll of 2-1: This counts for a score of twenty-one, the “Mexico” roll after which the game is named, and which is unbeatable, ranking above 6-6. Thus, the lowest possible roll is thirty-one. (As a point of interest, those familiar with the dice game Mia will notice that scoring in the two games is nearly identical.)

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