Lost Cities 3-player Variantby Tom Lehmann
Cut to determine seating order and starting player. Place the drawpile at the end of the board nearest the third player. That playerplays cards at a right angle to the board, discarding them normally.
Deal out seven cards to each player, not eight. Play proceeds clockwise, with no other changes.
Adjust scoring as follows:
Subtract 15, not 20, from each suit's total (before multiplying).
The length bonus is 15, not 20, for suits of length seven or more (not eight or more).
(Think 7 and 15, instead of 8 and 20, to remember this variant.)
To balance out the luck of the draw, play a match of three games (assuggested in the rules). The player with the highest total score wins.
The 3-player game feels different than the 2-player game. The end game goes veryquickly when all three players are drawing cards. It is much harder fora player to 'stall' by drawing discards in order to play a few morecards.
Another difference is that a suit scoring positive points can be built from just two high valued cards.
It is possible for all three players to play and score positivepoints in the same suit, though it is difficult. As a result, theopening tends to be more fluid as players jockey about trying to divideup the five suits each one, two or three ways.
