Marco Polo Game Rules: How to Play the Pool Game

Marco Polo has one rule that matters more than the rest: whoever is “it” closes their eyes, calls “Marco,” and every other player in the pool must answer “Polo,” loudly enough to be heard. “It” then swims toward the sound and tries to tag someone using hearing alone. Get tagged, and you’re the new “it.” Everything else in the game is a variation on that core call-and-response chase, and it has been played in American backyards and pools since at least the 1960s, per Wikipedia’s history of the game.

Below is the full rule set, the variations worth knowing before your next pool party, how many players and how much pool you actually need, and the disputes that end almost every casual game, with fixes that hold up.

What Are the Basic Rules of Marco Polo?

• Pick “it.” One player is chosen, often by a quick count or “not it,” and stands or floats in the pool with their eyes shut.
• No peeking. “It” keeps their eyes closed for the entire turn, whether swimming, standing, or reaching to tag.
• Call and response. “It” calls “Marco” as often as they like. Every other player in the pool must immediately answer “Polo.”
• Tag by sound. “It” moves toward the responses and tries to tag a player. Splashing, breathing, and even nervous giggling all give position away. That’s the entire skill of the game.
• Underwater exemption. A player who is fully underwater when “Marco” is called doesn’t have to answer, since they can’t be heard anyway. Most groups don’t let anyone stay under on purpose just to dodge every call.
• Tag ends the turn. Whoever gets tagged becomes the new “it,” closes their eyes, and the next round starts immediately.

That’s the entire ruleset in its purest form: no board, no equipment, no fixed boundaries beyond “the pool.” The game’s simplicity is exactly why it has outlasted almost every other pool game invented since.

How Do You Play a Round, Step by Step?

1. Agree on boundaries first, usually the shallow end, or the whole pool if everyone can touch bottom or swim confidently.
2. “It” closes their eyes and counts to ten (some groups skip the count and just call “Marco” right away) while everyone else spreads out.
3. “It” calls “Marco.” Everyone answers “Polo,” then quietly repositions before the next call.
4. “It” swims toward the loudest or closest responses, calling “Marco” repeatedly to keep tracking players.
5. The first player tagged becomes “it” for the next round. Play continues until the group calls time.

Most groups run informal time limits, two or three minutes per turn, so a slow “it” doesn’t stall the whole game. Agree on that before the first “Marco,” not after someone’s arms are tired.

What Are the Most Popular Marco Polo Variations?

Regional names for these vary (you might know “Mermaid on the Rocks” as “Alligator”), but the mechanics below are the ones that show up in pools across the US, UK, Australia, and Canada.

Variation	How It Differs from Standard Play	Difficulty for “It”
Standard Marco Polo	Eyes closed the whole turn, tag by sound alone	Moderate
Fish Out of Water	”It” can call “fish out of water” if they suspect someone left the pool; anyone caught out becomes “it”	Moderate, closes the deck-escape loophole
Mermaid on the Rocks	Players may sit on the pool ledge with legs still in the water; if caught there when “it” calls it out, they’re the new “it”	Easy, a milder version of Fish Out of Water
Alligator Eyes (Submarine)	“It” gets one timed underwater peek with eyes open, usually a single breath, to relocate players. Most groups cap it at one use per turn	Easy for “it,” harder for everyone else
Silent Polo	A stricter house rule where players answer with a single quiet “Polo” or a hand splash instead of a shout, so “it” has far less to go on	Very hard
Multiple “It” Players	Two or more players are “it” simultaneously, useful once a group passes eight to ten swimmers	Moderate, but rounds end faster

Standard play and Fish Out of Water cover most pool parties. Save Silent Polo for a group that already knows the basic game well; it’s a frustrating first introduction to the game.

How Many Players and How Big a Pool Do You Need?

Three players is the real floor: one “it” and at least two others, so there’s something to actually search for. Two-player Marco Polo doesn’t work as a game; it plays more like tag with extra steps. Four to eight players is the sweet spot for a standard backyard pool, enough bodies to create genuine sound confusion without the pool feeling overcrowded.

Pool size matters less than boundaries. A game confined to the shallow end works in almost any residential pool; you don’t need Olympic-sized water to make the sound-tracking mechanic interesting. Groups larger than ten usually add a second “it” rather than expand the play area, since one blindfolded player can’t realistically cover a full lap pool.

Is Marco Polo Safe to Play in a Pool?

Marco Polo itself isn’t a dangerous game. The risk comes from the same things that make any unsupervised pool time risky. The CDC’s drowning-prevention guidance notes that constant, focused supervision is the single biggest factor in preventing pool incidents, and lapses tend to happen during quiet moments, not chaotic ones. A few rules specific to this game:

• Keep it in the shallow end for younger or less confident swimmers. The American Camp Association recommends separating shallow and deep water with a clearly marked line, typically around 4 feet 6 inches, a sensible boundary for casual Marco Polo too.
• Ban dunking, pushing, and holding anyone underwater. Community Rec Magazine’s camp swim guidance specifically flags dunking and rough contact as the main injury risk in games like this, not the tagging itself.
• No running on the pool deck, especially for “it” chasing toward a voice with eyes closed.
• Supervise actively, not passively. The YMCA’s water safety guidance puts it plainly: phones down, eyes up, the whole time kids are in the water.
• Match the game to swim ability. The American Red Cross recommends confirming every player can swim and tread water comfortably before adding a blindfolded-chase element to the mix. If someone in your group is still building that comfort, our guide to starting swimming as a beginner is a good warm-up before pool games.

None of this requires a lifeguard whistle and a rulebook. It requires one adult actually watching, not scrolling, for the ten minutes the game runs.

What Are the Most Common Marco Polo Disputes, and the Fixes?

Every regular pool has had at least one of these arguments. Settle them before the game starts, not mid-round.

“You didn’t say Polo loud enough.” Set the bar before playing: a “Polo” has to be audible from across the pool, not muttered. If it’s borderline, the responder gets one warning, then it counts as a miss on the next call.

“You peeked.” The classic. If a group doesn’t trust “it,” have them wear real swim goggles with an opaque strip, or simply agree that any confirmed peek, caught by two or more witnesses, hands the turn to whoever they were about to tag.

Stalling underwater to dodge every call. Cap it at one held breath per call. Staying under through three or four consecutive “Marco” calls to avoid answering is stalling, not strategy, and most groups treat it as an automatic “Polo” owed.

Nobody agrees who touched who first. Contact has to be a clear hand-to-body tag, not a graze in passing. If two players dispute it, that round replays with the same “it.”

Turns run too long. This is the single biggest killer of pool-party momentum. Fix it in advance with a two- or three-minute cap per “it,” after which the group picks a new “it” by consensus regardless of whether a tag happened.

Settling these takes thirty seconds before the first “Marco” and saves the rest of the afternoon. Print or agree on your house rules (Fish Out of Water on or off, a breath-holding cap, the tag standard) and the game runs itself from there.

If your group likes nailing down exact rules before an argument breaks out, the same approach works for other backyard and court games. See our breakdowns of pickleball rules for beginners and kabaddi’s raid-and-tag rules for two more games where “how it’s actually supposed to work” gets debated more than you’d expect.