Splitting 7's in Blackjack - Splitting Sevens

When to Split Your Seven's

As you sit at a blackjack table in a casino or on the Internet, you may be faced with being dealt a pair of sevens. A lot of blackjack players have a lot of different ideas on what to do with a pair sevens, of these people, some chose to base their decision on what to do with that pair sevens on the odds, gut feelings or some odd superstition.

Blackjack Basic Strategy cards that can be bought in a lot of casino gift shops, or on the Internet, are a great way to find out what the best thing to do with a pair of sevens is. It is important to make sure you know ahead of time of the basic strategy card you bought gives you the best move to make, under the circumstances of the table you will be playing. For example, the basic strategy card that I have is for tables where the dealer stays on all seventeens, as opposed to some casinos that hit soft seventeen. The examples I give you for times to split your sevens is based on what you should do at a table where the dealer stays on all seventeens.

When dealt a pair of sevens, you most likely have the option to hit, stay or split the sevens. Basic Strategy says you should split your pair of sevens whenever the dealer has an up card of a two, three, four, five, six or seven. Meaning, when you are dealt a pair of sevens as your first two cards, it would be in your best mathematical interests to post a second bet, equal to the amount of your original wager and inform the dealer you would like to split your sevens. Hopefully you would receive an other seven, and if the casino allows you to split again, it is a great bet to split as many sevens as you are dealt, as many times as the house you are playing in allows, to maximize the number of bets you can get out there when the dealer is showing a weak up card. Ideally, you would start getting threes and fours on your sevens, hopefully the casino you are playing in allows for doubling down after splitting, which makes for a lot of money to be thrown on the table for the hand. Even if you get great double down opportunities, but not so great of double down cards, you are still hoping the dealer will break and whatever card totals you have, won't matter. Basic strategy also recommends that you do not split a pair of sevens against the dealer's up card, if the dealer is showing an eight, nine, ten valued card or ace, in those cases you would simply hit your fourteen.

Of course, simply following these basic rules, from basic strategy does not mean you will win every time you split your sevens, and it for sure does not promise to work out when you have a large wager out there, but hopefully it will work out more times than not. It seems, no matter how you decide to handle a pair of sevens, some player, somewhere say something to claim they would have done it better, but remember basic strategy is just that, basic...and simple to follow. If you do the same thing every time you are dealt a specific scenario in blackjack, you are far less likely to stay up all night beating yourself up for dropping the ball on a big hand.