Blackjack Splitting Strategy

For strategies that relate to splitting, simple rules are followed. Split aces and eights but never fives, or cards with values of ten.

It is the player who is the one who will determine the outcome of each game. Decisions taken must prove sound.

While basic strategy provides the player with increased chances of winning, these chances will also be affected by whether you are playing single or multiple deck games.

Blackjack’s popularity grew as a result of observations that determined that this was where the dealer could be beaten. The house advantage could be neutralised and even turned in the players favour.

In the 1950s, a group of soldiers, some with university degrees in mathematics, determined the odds of winning by using complicated mathematical formulas. The group became known as the Four Horsemen and their work became immensely popular for the professional gambler seeking the edge over the house.

In 1962, Edward O. Thorp published a book on how to beat the dealer. It simplified the earlier work from the group. Card counting techniques were also used in an effort to reduce the house advantage, providing a basis for progressing to advanced strategies.

In practice though, the result is little change and the advantage to the player minimal. This is especially relevant to the online form of the game, as you cannot count cards.

Because of the publicity that was given to the publications by Thorp and others who soon followed, such as Stanford Wong and Julian Braun, and characters that used computers in shoes to track cards at casinos, the gambling houses sought to change the rules or at least vary them to retain the house advantage.

This resulted in the introduction of multiple deck cards and frequent shuffling in an effort to counter the card counters themselves.