Wait, is this another April Fools joke?
argh, Edit for correction.
Why would you DIM 3,12 when all you'd need is DIM 4,1? Zero the two values for a no card place holder.
ie
if card 2 is a 5 of spades, then 2,0 = 5 and 2,1 = spade
if card 3 hasn't been input, then 3,0 = 0 and 3,1 = 0
etc
The reverse is also acceptable, DIM 1,4 and matches the suit before the value in the original exercise. Both are 10 element arrays.
Comparisons are much more straight forward.