You're dealt a pair of 3s. The dealer shows a 8. Split or play it as one hand? Basic strategy answers:
| Hit ← | -0.2172 |
| Split | -0.2297 |
| Stand | -0.5105 |
| Double | -1.0013 |
| You bust on the next card | 0.0% |
| Dealer 8 busts | 24.5% |
Hit beats Split by 0.0124 per unit staked. Small, but it is the same small edge in every shoe you ever play — and it compounds over a lifetime of hands. Across the 340 situations in this chart it ranks 273rd by expected value — better than 67 of them, worse than 272. 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 8 is too strong to justify splitting 3s — you'd just be doubling your exposure with two weak hands. Play the pair as a normal total of 6 instead: hit.