You're dealt a pair of 7s. The dealer shows a 8. Split or play it as one hand? Basic strategy answers:
| Hit ← | -0.3719 |
| Split | -0.3890 |
| Stand | -0.5105 |
| Double | -0.7663 |
| You bust on the next card | 46.2% |
| Dealer 8 busts | 24.5% |
Hit beats Split by 0.0171 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 313th by expected value — better than 27 of them, worse than 312. 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 7s — you'd just be doubling your exposure with two weak hands. Play the pair as a normal total of 14 instead: hit.