For any player that considers himself or herself a decent strategist, blackjack is a game that can be considered a game of “situational decisions”. One of these decisions is whether to split or not your tens and even if you can consider this as an overall bad decision as you will be sacrificing a 20 just to get the chance to get two good hands and win more money, you will see that most of the time this will work out against you rather than in your favor.
Unless you are a top player who knows how to count cards like you know the palm of your hand, not splitting your 10s is generally the most accurate decision that you can make, and since you will probably play online blackjack and card counting is automatically discarded, then you have even more reasons to keep the pair of tens instead of splitting them.
This “rule” of not splitting your 10s gets even harder if the dealer shows a 5 or a 6 on its hand as it will increase your odds of losing against the house. But let math show you why you should keep your tens, especially in this situation:
The odds of winning when you split your tens against a dealer showing a 6 are 64% out of 100% this means that around 6 out of 10 times, you will win using this strategy; we must say that this does not represent a bad odd at all as you will win more than half of the time. But, you must face that 6 out of 10 odds against the odds of not splitting your tens which represents an 85% chance of winning against the dealer. This means that 8.5 out of 10 times you will overcome the dealer by leaving your hand as it is.
In reality, if you check the 6/10 chance given by splitting your tens and face it against an 8.5/10 chance of winning on a game that relies more on stamina and endurance rather than winning it all in one hand, then you should listen to what math has to say on this matter as it does not recommend to go against the odds unless you are feeling really lucky or you need to make that kind of bet. If you feel lucky then don't listen to any tried and tested blackjack strategies.
However, there is an exception to this rule, and it occurs when you are playing a variation of blackjack called Face-Up 21; in this game, both of the dealer's cards are exposed, so, the strategy of splitting your tens can be considered great as long as the dealer’s confirmed total hand sums up 13, 14, 15 and even 16.
Looking at the chart, you can see even Ace 9 is a hand that you don't even double down on so if you don't do that there, then why would you split 10s?
Finally, the odds of you being dealt a 20 is around 9.2% of the time, this means that you should use that less than 1/10 chance to win using a safer strategy than risking your almost safe bet just for the chance of winning some extra money. But we also recommend following your gut, at the end of the day blackjack or any other gambling game is about the fun of taking risks and betting against winning or losing, just remember to have fun while playing.
Best Blackjack Tip: Always play with a bonus!
Our best blackjack tip for you to take away is to always play online blackjack with a bonus. You can find all types of blackjack bonuses in our blackjack section.
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