You're dealt a pair of 8s. The dealer shows a 5. Split or play it as one hand? Basic strategy answers:
| Split ← | +0.2283 |
| Stand | -0.1672 |
| Hit | -0.4495 |
| Double | -0.8990 |
| You bust on the next card | 61.5% |
| Dealer 5 busts | 41.6% |
Split is not close: it beats Stand by 0.3955 per unit. Getting this one wrong costs $3.96 on a $10 bet, every single time. Across the 340 situations in this chart it ranks 92nd by expected value — better than 248 of them, worse than 91. 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 pair of 8s is hard 16 — the worst total in blackjack. Splitting escapes the disaster and restarts two hands from 8, which plays far better than 16 against any card, even a 5. It's not about winning big here; it's about losing less, and the math is unambiguous.