Before you write code you need to understand the specs. IOW, before you develop an algorithm and turn it into code, you need to get your facts straight.

Becoming a good Perl programmer is possible without being an analyst... but when you're acting as your own analyst, step one is knowing the relevant facts. JavaFan mentioned a good many of them, but your subsequent posts show little sign that you recognized them as important to your progress.

For example

• most poker games (not blackjack, acey-ducey or the like) use either 5 card or 7 card hands -- sometimes with some of those shared ("in the middle"). But you've posted code with 4 cards in play and with 8.
• "5 cards of the same color" wins nothing. Five cards in the same suit ("kind" is what you said at one point) in a different matter; that's a flush, and ranks higher than a straight, which is 5 cards (regardless) of suit, in numeric order, A..10 or 3..7, etc.
          and then we come to the code:
• Have you found a use for << in a comparison? Generally, it's documented with heredocs

And BTW, a script (code) is an expression of an algorithm; not an algorithm itself.

Clearly, you deserve (and are receiving) credit for effort, but ignoring most of the suggestions and making up operators and syntax won't be an efficient way to learn.

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