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You’re having a pretty good night at the blackjack table.
You’re up a bit of money and decide to press your luck, stick a pile out on the betting circle, and out come the cards. You’ve got two nines against the dealer’s seven.
Now you are really wishing you knew when to split in blackjack. Have no fear, before heading to the best blackjack casinos we’ll tell you all you need to know.
What is a Split in Blackjack?
If your first two cards have the same value, you may split them by placing exactly the amount of your first wager beside your bet and making a splitting motion with your fingers.
This, in theory, means that you could split a jack and Queen because they have the same value of 10. You shouldn’t, but in theory, you are allowed.
Giving up a very good hand of twenty to have a chance to draw a six or worse is seldom going to make sense.
You will generally be allowed to split up to three times for a total of four hands. And most games allow for doubling after the split.
When we discuss when to split in blackjack in the next section, you will see that if the casino doesn’t allow Double After Split (DAS), we will split far fewer hands.
After you are dealt the first card on your split hand, you are free to hit or stand as you normally would.
The exception is if you are dealt a pair of aces. Most blackjack tables today will only allow you to split aces just the once, though there are still some games out there that let you split up to four times.
The other exception to the rule here is that you only get dealt one card on aces, though it’s possible there are still some online casinos that allow you to hit re-split aces more than once.
When to Split in Blackjack
In our example at the top of this page, we were dealt a pair of nines against a dealer seven.
Perfect blackjack strategy says always split nines when a dealer has anything between two and nine, except when they have a seven.
We aren’t going to risk another pile of chips when we already have an eighteen against what we hope is a dealer seventeen.
Statistically, we will be dealt cards that could be split about every sixteen or seventeen hands, so after learning when to double down, we really need to make sure we know when to split in blackjack games.
- We know what to split and when.
- We know this by running hundreds of millions of hands through computers to “solve” when it is mathematically best to split, hit, stand, or double down.
- These numbers are then put into tables, showing you what you should do for every hand you are dealt.
- These basic strategy guides can cut the house advantage from 2% to as low as .2% in certain games with player-friendly rules.
There are variables, however, if you’re not playing the standard game.
How many decks are used? Does a dealer hit soft seventeen or stay? Are players allowed to double on any two cards after the split?
These small rules can change how we play some hands, so it’s critical that we understand the rules at each table and use the correct guide.
General Blackjack Splitting Rules
Let’s run through the deck from the top, to learn how to split in blackjack:
- Aces: they are dead simple. We will always split aces, even if we can only split them once and even if we only get one card.
- 10-value cards: these are equally simple. We will never split them. A 10 and a queen, nope, we are keeping our 20. Two jacks? Nope, we are good.
- Nines: as we discussed earlier, we would split nines against a dealer’s two through nine except when they have a seven.
- Eights: we will always split eights; if you remember nothing else, remember you always split aces and eights. You will hear this oft-repeated ditty around blackjack games both because it’s true and easy to remember.
- Sevens: at sevens, we come to our first slightly more complicated rule. But if you can remember split sevens up to seven you’ll have it. We split sevens against a dealer two through seven.
- Sixes: we can remember splitting sixes with the same mnemonic: we split sixes up to six. But here we encounter our first rule change: if we can’t double after splitting, we just hit our twelve against a dealer two instead of splitting the sixes.
- Fives: two fives are another no-brainer. We might double our hand of 10, but splitting the pair of fives to make two worse hands doesn’t make sense. Hit or double a pair of fives. And if possible, remember the other ditty about never splitting fives and 10s.
- Fours: only split against a dealer’s five or six unless you can’t double after the split, in which case we will just hit our eight against any dealer’s up card.
- Threes: split against a dealer two through seven, with the hopes of getting a double down hand. If you can’t double after a split, just hit against a dealer two or three.
- Twos: just like threes. We split against two through seven. If you cannot double after the split, just hit against a two or three.
In a six-deck game, everything else being equal, blackjack house edge is 0.46%.
If doubling after split is not allowed, it rises to 0.6%, which may not sound like much, but is an increase of almost a third in what you can expect to lose per hour.
How to Signal a Split in Blackjack
Most dealers will know basic strategy or a close approximation and will be ready when you are ready to split your blackjack hand.
Learning how to split your hand in blackjack is as easy as asking your dealer.
For most casinos in the US, you simply put out the same exact bet, put your two index fingers together, and then pull them apart, indicating a splitting motion.
It is possible that in other parts of the world, the motion may be different, but your helpful, friendly dealer will get you squared away with local customs, and you will be splitting your blackjack hands easily before you know it.
Can you Split Non-Pairs in Blackjack?
You can only split cards of the same value. But strictly speaking, since 10s, Jacks, Queens, and Kings are all worth 10, you could feasibly split any first two cards worth twenty regardless of whether they were pairs or not.
You shouldn’t, but you could. If you go through with this, you will hear the dealer say, splitting 10s loudly to the whole table.
Their intention is not to embarrass you, or at least not entirely, but to let the floor supervisor know that someone is doing something unusual.
When some decks become unusually rich in 10-value cards, card counters who have been waiting on this moment will sometimes split 10s to take advantage of the high count, but even most of them avoid this move because of the attention it brings.
Can the Dealer Split in Blackjack?
Dealers cannot split in Blackjack. Nor can they double or get paid extra for their Blackjack. Any pair dealt to a dealer will be played as a normal hand without the opportunity for the dealer to split them.
