Why always split eights

However when you pair split, you break up you 16, double your bet, and play two hands of 8. You might even hear some comments from the dealer or fellow players about why you should have stood or hit.

Forget about them. Thankfully my friend always splits aces. You would think that every blackjack player would automatically split aces. But recently I observed a young player pass on splitting aces because "she was afraid to bet more on the hand". I even offered to make the bet for her at no risk if the bet lost she owed me nothing. But it was like talking to a wall. She insisted on hitting the pair of aces and drew two tens and broke.

She was mumbling incoherently when she left the table knowing full well that if she had taken my offer she would have had two hands of 21 by the way, I was card counting and the count was positive indicating she had a good chance of drawing tens to her aces.

It use to be standard casino policy that when you split aces you would get one and only one draw card to each split ace. Sometimes the player would draw another ace and was stuck with a hand of Nowadays many casinos allow players the opportunity to resplit aces. In the above example the player could split his third ace and play three hands. Resplitting aces is a favorable player rule that adds about 0.

Follow the golden rule and always split eights and aces no matter what the dealer upcard happens to be. Splitting aces will result in significant gains for the player.

It has been used by many of them all over the world. However, more and more arguments are appearing against some of the cases of this pair which suggest that splitting is the best move. There are exceptions to every rule, as you shall see later, albeit very few where splitting 8s is concerned. It is just one of those tricky situations that always provokes heated discussions and second thoughts during the game.

Nonetheless, basic strategy is perfectly clear about how players should approach this card holding if they engage in blackjack recreationally, even more so if they are looking to increase their win rates and cut their long-term losses. It is really important for players to know what is the best way to proceed in advance, especially in such tricky situations in order to reduce the amount of their money loss to the minimum.

As already mentioned, having a pair of 8s is a challenging position to be in. Therefore, it is best to have a look at the reasons why a particular move is suggested to be the most reasonable one. Of course, even though blackjack is a game of skill, it is still played in a casino and chance is involved.

This places them in a very unfavourable position as they can easily go bust. Any card above 5 will cause them to lose the hand if they decide to risk by hitting. All playing decisions hitting, standing, doubling , bar splitting, result in negative expectation for the recreational blackjack player. Meanwhile, splitting your 8s yields a positive expected value for basic strategists against lower dealer upcards deuce through 7.

As for splitting the 8s versus higher upcards 8 through ace, the expectation is negative but it is still better than that for hitting as some gambling authors would suggest. Both moves lead to long-term losses for the basic strategy players , but splitting helps you reduce the damages to your bankroll over the long haul. However, splitting is the lesser of the two evils. The bottom line is that this move gives players the opportunity to avoid going bust with one more hit and to have at least one decent hand.

Whenever players find themselves in a breaking position, what they should do is split the losing hand into two, hopefully good, ones. In most versions of Blackjack, when you are dealt a pair two of the same card , you have the option to split them into two new hands. When you split, you must match your bet on the new hand, effectively doubling the amount wagered. After the split, you are dealt two more cards, one for each hand. Play then proceeds, with you playing both hands.

Should you receive two aces, the split is an easy move because an Ace is the most powerful card in Blackjack. Any card drawn next that is valued at 10 gives you The deck has more value cards than any other single value—10s, Jacks, Queens, and Kings all count as So, you combine an Ace with the higher probability of drawing a value card, thus increasing your chances of beating the dealer and winning.

An ace can count as either a 1 or an 11, so you could play either of those values. Or, you could add the 1 and the 11 to total twelve. If you draw a ten-value card against that 12, you will bust immediately at twenty-two!

Splitting Aces offers two chances for the strongest hand in the game.