Why You Should Always Split Eights in Blackjack

Before taking a seat at the Blackjack table, it can be extremely helpful to familiarize yourself with some useful tidbits of strategy.

Many of these deal with what move to make in a specific situation, to set yourself up well for the rest of the game. Splitting eights is one of these such moves and here we discuss why it is advisable to do so when given the chance.

Strategies

Most Blackjack strategies suggest splitting a pair of eights, no matter the dealer’s up-card value, so that a player has a lower likelihood of going bust.

Splitting in this way is recommended because two eights already equal 16 and so hitting at this point can have obvious drawbacks. In fact, if a player decides not to split here, there is a 50% chance of busting because anything other than an ace, 2, 3, 4, or 5 will surpass the magic number 21.

Splitting

This means that in practically every situation where a player has a pair of 8s, mathematics and probabilities dictate that splitting rather than hitting is the way to go.