To beat the dealer’s hand without exceeding a count of 21 in order to win as much money from the dealer (the casino) as you can.
The total of the cards in your hand are displayed beside the hand. This is appropriate since in a real casino the dealer will usually call out the total of the players hand. This is the important part of the hand. Remember that the object of the game is to “beat the dealer” even it means letting the dealer bust. A bust occurs when the value of cards in your hand exceeds 21. The dealer must play by specific rules, primarily the dealer must stand on a value of 17 or greater. That is, if the dealer has less than 17 he must take another card. The most common card in the deck is a 10 (Ten, Jack, Queen or King) therefore by looking at the dealer’s up card you can make a good guess about the value of their hand. If the up card is a 7 then you can safely assume that the down card is a ten so the value of their hand has a good probability of being 17.