Always split 8's

[blackjacktim]

I have been wondering if someone could explain to me why it makes sense to split 8's when the dealer is showing a 10 or a 9.

[genini1]

The short answer is because the sims say so.

The long answer is that both moves are losing hands, but in the long run you will lose more money by hitting 88 against a 9 or 10 than you will by splitting them. This is because 16 is awful, but by splitting you get a decent chance of 10/11/18/19 which are all pretty good.

[hitthat16]

Many splits are made to lose less money, not to win more.

[Norm]

Good responses. The simple answer is that 16 against a high card is a simply awful hand. In most circumstances, and disallowing surrender, break it into two hands and hope for a push.

[Dtb239]

88-9 is hit -.538890 split -.405024
88-10 hit -.536853 split -.483502

Surrender is of course -.5 which has less variance but splitting is more efficient in the long run, you lose less.

So this means if you had a $100 dollars you would expect to lose $53.8890 when you hit 88-9 and lose $40.5024 if you split.

This is 6 deck shoe, other deck combinations would be similar.

BJA3 451-452

[Rudy]

I have been wondering if someone could explain to me why it makes sense to split 8's when the dealer is showing a 10 or a 9.

Now you have the best answers. Moreover, not always, later you'll realize you do not have to split them in a ENHC game against a 10.

[RS]

You can think of it like trying to win one of them and lose the other for a net push....whereas if you hit (or stay) on your 88, it's a near sure-loss. You end up losing less money by splitting 88vT as opposed to hitting (or standing) on 88vT where you lose more money.

The same concept (split to lose less), is actually very common...even against dealer small-upcards, although not to the same degree as 88vT.