One major problem is that you tend to forget the dollar sign before your variables. Take this line, for example:

elsif (x = max - 1)
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You should probably add this line near the top, and then declare your variables with my:

use strict;
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It will help you catch these kinds of errors.

Update: I believe that if() statements and for() loops require curly braces, even if they are one-liners. Code such as this:

for (...)
  if (...)
    ...blah...
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should be like this:

for (...) {
  if (...) {
    ...blah...
  }
}
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buckaduck