One of the regular decisions you will have to make when playing any variant of Blackjack is whether to Split a pair once you have been dealt one.

It is worth pointing out that if you do indeed decide to Split a pair then you will have to place a stake equal to your initial wager onto the new hand.

If you are betting big this can be a scary decision to make as it will involve you doubling up your wager amount.

A lot of people will not Split a pair due to having to pay another stake, but you should never let your budget make your betting decisions.

You should only Split a pair when the strategy card dictates that that is the best move to make.

If you Split the wrong pair then ultimately you will end up, over the long term on the wrong side of an ever growing house edge.

Take a look on the right hand side of this page, here we have placed a strategy card for the Spanish Blackjack game, there are loads of other strategy cards dotted around our site.

As you can see on the card the top row indicates every possible hand the Dealer can get and on the left hands side is yours, the players hand.

Take a look at all the Pair possibilities you can get dealt and by looking closely at the strategy card you will see every decision you need to make.

All Blackjack games have an age old saying and that is never Split Tens. We have to agree with this strategy, no matter what card the Dealer is showing, if you have a Pair of Tens never, ever Split them.

When you are working out your Blackjack budget for any gaming session never forget to take into account the fact that you may need to Split a pair and this will mean you have to place another wager.

Also another thing to throw into the equation is that after you have Split a hand some strategies dictate that certain hands should be Double Downed on, thus another stake is required!

You may also, on certain Blackjack games, have the chance to Re-split a Pair, so this will cost you even more. The moral of the story is to always set a sensible gaming budget and stake per hand.

If the correct strategy is to Split a Pair then this is what you should do, don’t be put off by the placing of another wager onto the Blackjack table.