When to Split Your Pair of Eight's

During the course of playing at a Blackjack table, either on the Internet or in a casino, you will most likely, at some point be dealt a pair of eight’s. A lot of different blackjack players have a lot of different thoughts about what to do with a pair of eight’s. Some blackjack players base their choices on the pair of eight’s on math, luck, gut instinct or possibly even card counting. No matter how you choose how to take on a pair of eight’s, it is very important to remember that it will not always work out the way you hope it to. Sixteen is a horrible hand and anytime it is possible to split a total of sixteen, I welcome the change of hand.

Since it is best to always play consistent and play the pair of eight’s the same way every single time, I suggest basing your choice to either hit, stay or split on what the basic blackjack strategy card says. The basic strategy card for blackjack can be found and purchased in a lot of casino gift shops, and even on the Internet, it is very inexpensive and well worth the small investment in to this credit card sized color chart. It is good to keep well in mind that when shopping for a basic blackjack strategy card, that you make sure it is accurate for the conditions under which you will be playing, for example, the card I use is good for blackjack tables where the house stays on all seventeens, if the casino you play in hits their soft seventeen, then my card would not be a good card to study.

According to the basic blackjack strategy card that I have, when you are dealt a pair of eights and the blackjack dealer is showing an up card of a two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten valued card or even an ace, you should certainly split your pair of eights. That’s right, no matter what the blackjack dealer is showing for an up card, you should always split your pair of eights. A lot of blackjack players around you may start sharing their personal thoughts on the game of blackjack with you when they see you splitting your pair of eights against the blackjack dealer’s nine, ten valued up card and ace. Those blackjack players will ask you how do you expect a pair of eighteen hands to beat a blackjack dealer’s nineteen or twenty, or Blackjack. Well, first off, if the blackjack dealer has a ten valued card under his or her ace up card, you are losing your money on your sixteen anyway, and if you had split your pair of eights, you are only going to lose your originally placed bet anyway, meaning you will only lose one wager, regardless if you split and/or doubled down on any hand where the blackjack dealer beat you with a blackjack or a Natural Twenty One. Secondly, when splitting your pair of eight’s, you are not necessarily looking to make two hands of eighteen, you are hoping for a third eight, only if the casino you are playing in allows splitting more than once. Splitting your pair of eights, as many as you get and as many times as the house allows you to split, is the best way to handle a sixteen and the very best way to get the most amount of money out there on the blackjack table, on one hand. Once the blackjack dealer stops giving you a third or fourth eight to split, it would be ideal to get a two or three on your eight, that would make a great opportunity to double down. Thirdly, we don’t always know for certain that the blackjack dealer has a ten valued card under their up card, so just because the house is showing a nine, does not always mean that the blackjack dealer will have a nineteen, just like just because you split your pair of eights, does not mean you will catch a ten valued card on each of the eights, you could just as easily snag a small card on each and hit to a better than eighteen total hand.

Of course, just because you split your pair of eights and do away with an ugly sixteen every time you get them, certainly does not mean you will always win, or always win when you have a big bet out there and split your pair of eights, it can pretty easily go very bad, at any time, and for big money. A lot of blackjack players only like to split their eights against the blackjack dealers two, three, four, five, six and seven, sometimes the eight, but not at all the nine, ten valued card or ace that the blackjack dealer is showing. They chose to follow basic blackjack strategy only half way, only when it makes the most obvious amount of sense to them. The problem with only following basic blackjack strategy sometimes, as opposed to every single time is, you never know quite when it is going to work out. You could split your pair of eights against the blackjack dealer’s two, get a bunch of splits and double downs, and the blackjack dealer can turn that two in to a twenty one, after just a few hits, and you lose, or you could split your pair of eights against the blackjack dealer’s ten valued card and you could make two eighteens and the blackjack dealer is hiding a seven under his or her ten valued card and you win on both eighteens. Bottom line is, you can’t always assume every single unseen card is a ten valued card, it is not, a lot of different things can happen.