Programming a Poker Game

[PBAR]

I'm taking an AI course at university and for a project we are making a poker game between two players. The game is five card stud with no draws.

Anyways, I'm wondering the best way to go about this. I basically need a function that deals a hand and one that evaluates a hand. As of now, I am representing the deck as a 4x13 array of one's, and when a card is dealt its index is changed to a zero. For the poker hand, I thought of representing it with a 2x5 array, where the first row are the card values and the second is the suits. This may not be the best approach and any suggestions are appreciated. I'm an engineering student and not a computer scientist.

I'm wondering what the best way to make the hand evaluator is. Any suggestions are again appreciated. Thanks.

(This will be done in C++)