You're dealt a pair of 9s. The dealer shows a 7. Split or play it as one hand? Basic strategy answers:
| Stand ← | +0.3996 |
| Split | +0.3700 |
| Hit | -0.5911 |
| Double | -1.1823 |
| You bust on the next card | 76.9% |
| Dealer 7 busts | 26.2% |
Stand beats Split by 0.0295 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 65th by expected value — better than 275 of them, worse than 64. 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 7 is too strong to justify splitting 9s — you'd just be doubling your exposure with two weak hands. Play the pair as a normal total of 18 instead: stand.