If the dealer has a 3 thru 6 showing, why not split tens?
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t. The book says not to and I play by the book. The rational I’ve been given is that with a twenty, you have a “made hand” and you shouldn’t screw it up.
But it kind of goes against the blackjack assumption that every card drawn will have a ten point value.
Under that operating assumption is that the dealer will have 13 thru 16 and draw out a bust, while I will draw a pair of 20s.
Now, I know probability doesn’t fully back up the idea, but the rule of 10 is a staple in blackjack.
And even if you get a low card on your split, with the dealer having a low card, you still are in good shape. The dealer is more likely to bust than not.
I don’t play a lot of blackjack so this is speculative on my part, but I seem to recall hearing that the average winning hand for a player in blackjack is 18.6 or something so you’re aiming to get as close to 18.6 as possible. If you have a 20 then you’re above that number. If you split your 10s then you’re looking at avoiding deuces through sevens, twice. Even if you hit well on both hands, if you don’t hit up to a 20 then you have two hands that are weaker than your original 20. You’re giving the dealer more outs.
I’m not familiar with the assumption that every card you draw will be a 10. I know that the assumption to play by is that the dealer always has a 10 for her/his down card.
I’ve watched some tournament blackjack on TV and have seen situations where splitting 10s is the right play, but only because the player needed to get more money out to overtake another player. I seem to recall a hand from a recent televised tourney when a player had no choice but to double (for less because he was low on funds) no matter what his hand was. He was dealt a 20, doubled for all his remaining chips and drew an Ace to win.
But there are actually more cards in the deck under 10 than there are 10s. Odds are actually that any given card will not be a 10. “Assuming every card will be a ten” is an oversimplification of the strategy. Look at your own words - you said “3 thru 6 showing”. If you’re really assuming a 10 will come up, you would have said “2 thru 6”, so you obviously recognize that there’s more to it than always assuming a 10 will come up.
I think the problem is that people come up with quaint aphorisms like, “6 is the dealer’s bust card” or “A deuce is the dealer’s ace”, which help players to remember certain points of strategy that might seem to defy common sense, but which are really oversimplifications. There is an underlying mathematical certainty as to how probably each outcome is, which is undeniable. You can’t really rely on common sense when playing blackjack, because it often runs counter to the actual odds. You really have to just trust the people who have computed the odds.
Basically, the reason you shouldn’t split tens is that you’ll win less money that way.
Obviously a 10 against a dealer’s 6 is a very strong position; however, holding a TWENTY against a six is such an overwhelming position that your expected winnings are better keeping the twenty than splitting 10s, even though in the latter case you double your bets.
And that’s pretty much the same reason for every other decision in blackjack. Why do you hit a sixteen against a dealer’s 10? Why do you always split 8’s? The answer is because if you do the math and work out the expected value of all the possible outcomes, you make more money when you split 'em. There’s no one ‘reason’ for it. The math just works out that way.
There is no guesswork here, by the way. Blackjack has been ‘solved’ in terms of optimum strategy since the 1960’s. Unless you are counting cards, there is never, ever a reason to deviate from that strategy.
If you are counting, then the decision trees get a lot more complex. For example, it’s mathematically proper to split tens against a dealer’s six if you are counting a hi-lo simple count and the true count is +5 or greater. Likewise, it’s correct to stand on a 16 against a dealer’s 10 any time you have a positive count. There are dozens of modifications to basic strategy that you would employ if you’re a card counter, although about 90% of the advantage can be maintained by just learning the 18 most important strategy changes and ignoring the rest.
Having done some tournament blackjack, there are indeed times where you need to split 10s or do other non-basic plays to have a chance. But you will never see me playing anything but basic strategy when I’m playing against the house.
I have split 10s, in order to tick off a woman at the other end of the table. She kept telling me I was playing wrong. (I was up $200.00 at that point.) So I got the 2 tens, looked at her and smiled, then split them. I got a 10 and an ace and the dealer got 19. She got up and went to a different table.
Sometimes the dealer will override a players decision of he determines you don’t know what you are doing. They would rather correct your play and give you the best chance to, well still lose money, but closer to break even, so you will play more, then loose your shirt from stupid moves and never come back.
It the dealer has a feeling that you know how to play, then they are more likely to allow it. (and maybe get evidence about card counting to get you banned)
Irrspective of whether splitting 10s is the right thing to do, there is NOTHING on earth that pisses me off more than assholes who tell you how to gamble your money. I’d have split 10s too if that bitch was at my table.
If someone else is gambling “wrong” you keep your goddamn mouth shut unless they ask for advice.
If somebody is gambling wrong (defined by me as not playing the basic strategy–not in poker, that’s a different type of game) and I wind up losing money as a result, I’m still gonna keep my goddamn mouth shut. I just get up and change tables and secretly hope the guy loses big time.
What’s really funny is when the dealer calls the guy on it.
