One of the things about playing in an online casino is that you have before you so many options that you can play virtually any game you want to play. The key to seeing all of these game variations resides with the software provider more than anything else. Some, like Microgaming, cover the game from every angle and will have games that will give the customer every different option. Of course, those options occur in different games; you are not likely to get them all in one variation. After all, that would offer too much in the way of an edge to you.

What are some of the options you should see in any blackjack game you ultimately decide to play? That's a good question, and deserves a good answer. What you want is to have more of an opportunity to put money on the table when you might be in a good situation. So which options does that cover?

Splitting pairs is a good one, because it allows you to take a pair of card dealt to you and turn it into two hands. But one of the mistakes some players make is that they see a pair and automatically split it up. That is, of course, unwise. You have to split up pairs when it is mathematically appropriate to do so. Proper Basic Strategy in blackjack may require you to split a pair of twos, threes and sevens when the dealer is showing any upcard ranging from two (2) through seven (7). In addition to that, you would split a pair of fours against a dealer's 5 or 6 upcard, and split sixes when the dealer has any upcard from a two (2) through six (6).

There is one other splitting option that has to be memorized. It's when you have a pair of nines. In this particular instance, you would split against any dealer's upcard that ranges from 2 through 6, along with 8 and 9. You would NOT split them up against a dealer upcard of seven, because you would just stand. Obviously the dealer would make a 17 with a ten-value card (a ten, Jack, Queen or King) and you would beat that with the total of 18 that is produced by the pair of nines.

It should go without saying that a pair of nines equals ten, and you would follow doubling rules instead of splitting rules to govern that hand. Also eights and Aces should always be hit, and NEVER split a pair of ten-value cards.

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