Imagine that you participate in a six-deck game with S17 and you hold 7-4, while the upcard of the dealer is an Ace. To employ variations to the basic strategy at the proper moment of time will usually benefit the player. Card counting is meant to achieve two objectives – to help the player assess when to raise his/her bet based on the count and to help him/her assess when to use certain variations to the basic strategy, again taking into consideration the count.