Kind of like how soft hands require a little extra thought to play at first, so too do pairs in blackjack. The biggest trap in dealing with a pair is the just knowing that it is a pair, and that you have an extra playing option that is not available with hands that are not pairs.

Because of having this extra playing option to split a pair into two new hands and possibly win twice as much in a single round, players make the mistake of splitting every pair. Unfortunately this is not good blackjack strategy.

Just because it is a power and the player has the power to split it does not mean that every pair should be split.

For example a pair of 5s and a pair of 10s should not be split. The pair of 5s can be played like a hard 10 and be doubled down on. Doubling on a pair of 5s has better odds of winning and making a profit than splitting the 5s does. Likewise, a pair of 10s is stronger as a hard 20 than split. This is because there are only two hands with which the dealer can beat you with: hitting to 21 or having a natural blackjack.

But then there are pairs that should always be split simply because the player has a better chance of building two stronger hands than beating the dealer by standing on the pairs. Those two pairs are a pair of Aces and a pair of 8s. It is more advantageous to split those two pairs.

Basic strategy is a good pair splitting strategy tool. It should be used as the base of your blackjack strategy because it tells players the most advantageous play to make.

Obviously you do not want to play both Aces as 11’s since your hand total would be 22 and a bust. The other non-split option is to reduce one Ace to a 1, but then you hand total is 12—another stiff hand that is more difficult to win with.

A hard 12 is tricky because basic strategy says to stand if faced with a dealer’s 4-6. And while you will not lose every single time against those three up cards, you are defiantly the underdog in those instances.

So if there is another way out of being stuck with a hard 12 why not take it? Doubling your original wager and splitting those Aces will allow you to start two new hands, each with its own Ace.

The advantage is that you will be playing with two hands that each have a second chance built in. A third chance really when you count splitting them as the second chance to your hand—that makes reducing to a 1 as a fallback the hands’ third chances.

By splitting your Aces into their own hands you are playing with two soft hands. This is advantageous because if you hit one too high you can reduce the Ace from 11 to 1 and still have a shot at creating a good hand. Whereas if you were to split any other pair you do not have that fallback ability to reduce the value of a card like the Ace allows.

Being able to split a pair of Aces and then playing them as soft hands—with the ability to reduce the value of the Ace if necessary—is what makes splitting a pair of Aces so advantageous.