Any Pinochle game app that offers Cutthroat varieties is unfortunate that they feel the need to have this broken game variety. The ONLY reason people ever play with less than 4 players is because that group cannot muster up a 4th to join!!! All of the hallmark card games that are worth their written history are 4-PLAYER games.

Pinochle, Spades, Hearts, Bridge are 4-player games that shouldn't be bastardized to feed the weird desires of people that do not want to stay within the natural confines of these games historical development. Go play UNO or Poker. Better yet.. send your 3rd wheel home and play some 2-player GO FISH... bhahaha

@Mike-Ox-Big wow I can't help but feel a bit slighted by your post. I've been playing pinochle 30 years and I started out with the minor league partner game. But once I started playing cutthroat (for$) I'm never really satisfied with partner's anymore. It's rather boring. You should try playing for money before you go making foolish decisions like wording off the true essence of the game. It could very well be that it's just a matter of preference.there are lots of old famous 3 man card games.

@Dangokills ... Well, since I started playing Spades, an historically famous 4-player game, and Pinochle, another solid 4-player standard, starting way back in 1980...then I've got almost a decade and a half more experience of more playing time that you stated in your reply (45 yrs vs. 30 yrs).

You may be right that it's preference that governs this but I have seen a decent game app turn into a helter skelter mess overrun by 3-player pin-knuckle-headers (lol...jk) with these players that have no respect for the game or the other people at the table. Maybe they would have learned both of those facets of the game by having to exhibit respect for their partner on 4-player format. Instead they mimic the sporting personalities of the younger crowd of Texas hold'em poker/World of Poker arrogant "kids" or the golf club throwing and garbage littering young golfers, or talk at will in the movie theater crowd.

Regarding the level of difficulty for three player versus four player:
1) the fierceness of the bidding four player.

2) strategizing your card passing especially if the bid winner didn't make the expected meld.

2a) Now having to be creative enough to make meld in the secondary hand via the four cards you pass back.

Now it should be easy to see four player is much harder, takes more concentration, demands more strategy, and has a whole other facet of the game of having to deal with your partner. Clearly four player is Major League and three player is maybe 2A ball or 3A ball.

Bahaha.... Either way we're both having fun!

Big ox, nice to hear from you. I can see now that I've been wrong all this time. Cutthroat is for kids. The nice people who bring us this game are now working on a version that will allow betting. PLEASE PLEASE meet me on that battle field and teach this second rate kid how superior your talent is to mine. I bet you will be very light in the pocket after your much needed lesson. I respect your passion for the game. Hell, I can even appreciate your stubborn heard head.I possess a small modicum of that myself. But, I will not quietly sit back and allow someone to badmouth the pure essence of the game just because they have such a hard head that they spend 40 years building a fantasy and distain about something they clearly don't understand. I'll give you this: Your jabs at cutthroat has made me want to come out of partner's retirement to show you a thing or two about the game. If you reply to this please give me instructions on how and where I can meet up with you on your own covited turf. I will smash you like a bug at your own game. But I would much rather empty your coffers on my turf.