Repetition in Crazyhouse

Why the hell is it a repetition draw if the pieces in hand change? This needs to be fixed! I hate chess.com so much. They don't give any attention to Variants or the Variant community. 

I'm not sure what you mean.  If you have reached the same board position three times, then you would have the same pieces in hand as well (with the exception of some really niche edge cases such as promoted pawn versus Queen).

I have a feeling this is the game you are referring to: https://www.chess.com/live/game/10115528357

It's a clear example of the threefold repetition.  The same board position is reached three times, and all the available moves are the same (including the pieces in your hand).

That is not true. You could have all the pieces in hand that your opponent had in hand before. All pieces not on the board could be either in your hand, or that of your opponent. There is no conservation of the number of pieces of a particular color, in Crazyhouse.

Ah, you're right.  I understand.  Thank you for correcting my ignorance.

I guess then back to OP's question; I don't know there is an "official" way to handle repetition.  For instance, even draws in bughouse vary from site-to-site and in different organizations.

I was looking through Chess.com to see if they ever explicitly state repetition draws in Crazyhouse rules, and they do not.  I could see arguments for both making repetition count purely on the on-the-board position and for the on-the-board position and legal moves (which would incorporate the pieces in hand).

Of course a game could adopt all kind of arbitrary rules to declare a draw result. But in general draws are not seen as a virtue. So it would be best not to declare a draw in a game that is clearly progressing towards a win, just because of some technicality. The 50-move rule is sometimes criticized for this, as some end-games (such as KBB-KN) would be forced wins without it. (This is never hotly debated, though, as such end-games are typically too difficult to win for humans anyway.)

But in variants with piece drops there often occur situations where the is a 'material burning move loop'. E.g. initially black has three Pawns in hand, but to delay some unavoidable loss he can sacrificially drop a Pawn, which then ends up in the white hand, after which the board position repeats. With continuing play such loops cannot be kept up forever, as sooner or later black will run out of Pawns to drop. It would be very unfortunate if the game was declared a draw just because the board position repeated 3 times, when each time white had one more Pawn in hand as on the previous occurrence.

That game is certainly one instance, but it has happened to me other times before. I agree if the pieces in hand are identical for both players, it should be a repetition draw. That was not the instance in this game. I was intentionally trading my Knights in hand for Bishops in hand, as it would allow me to open an attack that was a convincing win.

This is another great example of why this is a problem and should be fixed!

Still waiting on this. Worst community support ever.

If you want an actual admin answer, I suggest posting in the "Help and Support" forum instead.

The three repeated positions rules seems to be a bit aggressive, when the material changes off board.  https://www.chess.com/live#g=15950084451 shows the game I was playing where we traded his bishop for my knight just twice in a row, resulting in a third "copy" of the position and a draw, despite the change in offboard pieces.

It was an exchange we both easily saw as positive and advancing...  I saw bishops as better for my long term attack , and wanted to protect the pawn on h4, so the exchange each time was good for me.
He would've been able to push the capture of h4 by using his third bishop, so he also was happy to do the trade twice... but never got the opportunity to finish.

For the early stages of a dynamic developing game to get thrown to draw land randomly because you make a non-equal trade twice... seems crazy\frustrating.

Still waiting on this. Worst community support ever.

In crazy house i once played a double caro kann