DaveC's code should do what you need for the card dealing. I see that I forgot to include .item on the $hget when doing my checks of total cards remaining. It's been too long...
Anyhow, I think you were missing the idea that the hash table, after deleting a card, will not need to be checked to see if a card is gone. Think of the hash table like a deck of cards... you take one out and you don't have to then go back into the deck and see what card was removed... it's gone from the deck, so it won't be dealt again.
As for making a Hold'em bot... probably not anytime soon. I'm working on a couple other games right now (at least, I was before going offline for 2 months). I need to complete those first... Scattergories and Cribbage.
