If you have python 3.x, instead of 2.x, it seems like you need to use input() instead of the suggested raw_input() as it doesn't work with the former. Didn't see it mentioned on the assignment. Trying to make sure its not just my version of python. Used this as reference: 

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3345202/python-getting-user-input 

are we allowed to use python 2?

i was looking into the shuffle function in the random library and for python 3, the shuffle doesn't work unless it's placed in a list.  so i had to type cast it

deckofcards = {stuff....}

a = list(deckofcards) and then randomize a with shuffle