You hold a hard 20 (no ace counted as 11). The dealer shows a 8. Here is the mathematically correct basic-strategy play — and why.
| Stand ← | +0.7918 |
| Hit | -0.8515 |
| Double | -1.7030 |
| You bust on the next card | 92.3% |
| Dealer 8 busts | 24.5% |
Stand is not close: it beats Hit by 1.6433 per unit. Getting this one wrong costs $16.43 on a $10 bet, every single time. It is also the 1st best spot you can be in out of the 340 hands in this chart. Expected value is per unit staked, computed for multi-deck, dealer stands on soft 17, double after split allowed. The model and the code are published as data.
Showing a 8, the dealer ends up busting about 24% of the time. Meanwhile, if you hit hard 20, the next card busts you 92% of the time. When the dealer is this likely to destroy their own hand, taking that risk is a losing trade — you stand and let the math work against them.
This is one of the most common mistakes at the table: players feel 'weak' standing on 20 and draw anyway. Over thousands of hands, hitting here costs real money. The chart says stand — every time.