[GaryVoshol]

Let's not contribute too many opinions on what was in the minds of the committee who designed this algorithm.

I don't think anyone consciously said, "Let's put vet against vet and rookie against rookie." Rather, the "max time between matches" constraint was emphasized over all other constraints. Then they simply decided on team number as a primary sort - they could have done it alphabetically, or could have done it randomly. It wouldn't matter. Once "max time between matches" was decided as having priority, teams would end up seeing the same teams over and over again.

The popsicle stick in a bowl thing can easily be set up as a computer simulation. But then we have decided that "randomness" is the highest priority, and time between matches means nothing.

Teach the computer could to do a popsicle stick picking. For Round1, totally randomize it. To pick for Round2 make a constraint that there has to be at least "X" matches before a team must compete again. "X" would vary based on the number of teams in a regional. It should be at least 3, but in the larger regionals could be 4 or 5. To pick the first X matches in Round2, the popsicle sticks of any team that played in the last X matches in Round1 would be set aside. Once the first X matches are picked, all the remaining popsicle sticks are thown into the drum, and the rest of the matches of the round can be drawn. Repeat for all matches up to lunch time. Then totaly randomize again, and finish Friday - or maybe set the X constraint for the first match of the afternoon to 1. Totally randomize again and pick for Saturday.

This wouldn't work as well for the small regionals of 36 teams or less, because it would effectively divide the pool into two, one group playing the first half of the round and other playing the second half. Perhaps there the constraint could be set at 2, with a 1-match-length break between each Round.

This would have to be somewhat adjusted for regionals with numbers not exactly divisible by 6.

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