A woman playing blackjack got a pair of 10s, asked a man next to her: “do you know when is the right time to split 10s?” The man smiled and answered when the table is full and your buddies need a seat. This is a classic Blackjack joke you may already heard quite often. There is one very important moral point you can get from this joke, and that moral message that is to know when to split pairs.

Splitting pairs can be quite tricky if you don’t really know what you are doing. Some people might keep pair of 2s or 3s because they think it is not strong enough to split, but pair of 2s and 3s are actually one of the must-split because the odds of producing a relatively strong hand is quite high with 2 or 3 as a starting hand.

Pair of 10s should never be split because a hand totaling at 20 is already strong enough as it is; why ruin a solid chance of winning, right? Pair of Aces, on the other hand, is another must-split because the hand produces a total of 12 as a pair but two solid Aces as starting hands.

A pair of 5s is also something you should never split. You are starting with a total of 10, and that is more than great in Blackjack. In fact, professional Blackjack players will most likely double down when they get a pair of 5s because the hand can turn into a very strong one against the dealer’s.