You're dealt a pair of 2s. The dealer shows a Ace. Split or play it as one hand? Basic strategy answers:
| Hit ← | -0.2531 |
| Split | -0.4067 |
| Stand | -0.6670 |
| Double | -1.3339 |
| You bust on the next card | 0.0% |
| Dealer Ace busts | 16.7% |
Hit is not close: it beats Split by 0.1536 per unit. Getting this one wrong costs $1.54 on a $10 bet, every single time. Across the 340 situations in this chart it ranks 283rd by expected value — better than 57 of them, worse than 282. 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.
A dealer Ace is too strong to justify splitting 2s — you'd just be doubling your exposure with two weak hands. Play the pair as a normal total of 4 instead: hit.