Is It A Close Play?

Of course, not a problem. I do agree there are many and various levels of gambling deeds, all sorts of shades of grey; misdemeanors, felonies, venial sins, mortal sins. Peoples' accountibility skills run the gamut. Deal for a while, you see samples on every level, and some good guys, too.

Regarding splitting or doubling 4's, I'm amazed at how many people will double down a pair of 4's but never double down 3-5 or 2-6.

In a single deck game where you may not double after split, you should double 4-4 and 3-5 against a 6, but not 6-2. Why? I have no idea.

Now that's a close play. It will save you eight cents on an $10 bet.

EDIT: I got a decimal point wrong somewhere.

Correct SD strategy, built around CDE, is too detailed to explain everything. Although a simplistic explanation could be that 4 and 5 are the best cards to improve a 6 (to 10 or 11), and taking these out hurts the dealer.

Quote: teddys

Now that's a close play. It will save you eight cents on an $10 bet.

That's not close at all. 8 cents of $10 is a massive 0.8%.

Quote: teddys

...single deck game...you should double 4-4 and 3-5 against a 6, but not 6-2...

Some of the single deck changes are because there are only 52 cards in the deck and removing some cards affects various results. For instance you don't hit 7-7 vs 10 (presumably because there are only two 7s left to make 21).

Simplistically suppose the dealer already had a 10 with their 6; with 44 or 53 you've removed two good cards for the dealer to make a point, whereas taking 62 only removes one; so the chance of dealer busting is more if you have 44 or 53.

As you say some of the decisions that apply to single deck should occasionally affect your normal play, eg hitting 13 vs 2, splitting 3s vs 8. While I've never considered doubling 8 vs 6 (6 decks, S17, UK rules), I do tend to hit 10-3 vs 2 or 10-2 vs 4.