NAME
   Games::Poker::HandEvaluator - Perl extension for blah blah blah

SYNOPSIS
      use Games::Poker::HandEvaluator qw(handval evaluate);
      use Games::Cards;
      my $Poker = new Games::Cards::Game;
      my $Deck = new Games::Cards::Deck ($Poker, "Deck");
      $Deck->shuffle;

      # Deal out the hands
      my $hand = Games::Cards::Hand->new($Poker, "Hand") ;
      $Deck->give_cards($hand, 7);

      print $hand->print("short"), "\n";
      # Hand:  JC   7C   8C   JH   3C   7S   5C

      print handval(evaluate($hand)), "\n";
      # Flush (J 8 7 5 3)

   Or just:

      my $hand_a = evaluate("Jc 7c 8c Jh 3c 7s 5c");
      my $hand_b = evaluate("9d 5d Ks 7h 5s 7s 4c");
      if ($hand_a > $hand_b) {
         print handval($hand_a), " beats ", handval($hand_b);
         # Flush (J 8 7 5 3) beats TwoPair (7 5 K)
      }

DESCRIPTION
   This is an XS wrapper around the "libpoker" library, found at
   <http://www.pokersource.org/>.

   It provides two functions, which are not exported by default, "evaluate"
   and "handval". "evaluate" turns a hand, as described either by a
   "Games::Card::CardSet" object or a simple string, into an integer
   representing the best poker play for that hand. If the hand cannot be
   parsed, 0 is returned. This integer value can be compared with other
   hand evaluations; the higher the integer, the better the hand.

   "handval" turns that value into a short textual description.

SEE ALSO
   http://www.pokersource.org/

AUTHOR
   Simon Cozens, <[email protected]>

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE
   Copyright 2003 by Simon Cozens

   This library is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it
   under the same terms as Perl itself.