You're dealt a pair of 4s. The dealer shows a 9. Split or play it as one hand? Basic strategy answers:
| Hit ← | -0.2102 |
| Split | -0.4664 |
| Stand | -0.5432 |
| Double | -0.7185 |
| You bust on the next card | 0.0% |
| Dealer 9 busts | 22.8% |
Hit is not close: it beats Split by 0.2562 per unit. Getting this one wrong costs $2.56 on a $10 bet, every single time. Across the 340 situations in this chart it ranks 263rd by expected value — better than 77 of them, worse than 262. 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 9 is too strong to justify splitting 4s — you'd just be doubling your exposure with two weak hands. Play the pair as a normal total of 8 instead: hit.