It is okay to admit that you once upon a time did not truly understand the objective of blackjack. Not understanding the objective actually has an impact on how to play blackjack.
I will admit it. There once was a time that I did not know how to play blackjack correctly because I did not know the true objective of blackjack. Granted, this was a long time ago, but there was such a time. I was eleven years old waiting for classes to start in the morning; my friends and I would play blackjack thinking all we had to do was get 21.
Most often brand new players or non-regular players will hear that blackjack is all about getting a hand of 21.
This, however, is not the true objective of blackjack. The true objective is to beat the dealer without getting a card total of more than 21. And it is important to know the difference as these two objectives require two different playing and strategy mindsets.
If you were to play blackjack according to the idea that all you have to do is get a hand total of 21, it would not matter what the dealer had since all you have to worry about is getting 21. This difference in objectives becomes most evident in the hard hands.
About half of the hard hands in the game you stand on in hopes that the dealer will bust. But if you are not worried about the dealer, then a good many of those hard hands you would not stand on since the potential to get 21 is all the exists in this particular idea of the game.
But when taking the dealer into account it becomes evident how the game changes. Beating the dealer does not mean getting 21. It means getting a strong hand or playing defensively on a rough hand and hoping the dealer busts.
There are more hitting options in a game based only on getting 21. But there is more strategy involved in when you are playing a game in which you are trying to beat the dealer