Fastest way to get list in custom order

Question

I need to find the fastest way to get a small list of strings or chars in custom order. I found a lot of questions about sorting a list, but there is no question on the boar

Answer 1

if you are trying to write high performant poker code you really need to get rid of string/char representations and stick to int 0-12 values for deuces-aces

You say that your input is strings/chars, but its rare to find a place in high performant poker code where input is really char/string.

If you are trying to parse text boards and figuring out the hands of players performance is not so important usually.

If you are making some exhaustive board combinatorics you really need to stick to ints.