Not sure about the match scheduling for the different regionals or how they do it, but we clearly saw a change in how they did it from regional to regional.
Our Chesapeake one seems more like the 2007 one. We saw the same team in matches 4 times in a stretch of 5 matches in a field of 61 robots. How can that be?
Last week at VCU, this never happened.
The match algorithm output varies a lot depending on what parameters (like minimum spacing between matches, etc.) are given to it.
Trying to force too high or too low of a value into the algorithm (such as in a small event setting a high minimum match spacing) will not yield optimal results. As long as the algorithm is given good parameters for the number of teams attending the event, you’ll get a good match schedule.
We saw the same thing at the CT Regional, and especially the Championship Event last year. This year, we’ve had a few repeat teams- one during practice matches yesterday, one during qualifications today- but at least both times we were on their alliance once, and against them the next time.
The 2008 scheduler algorithm is explained here. I have been very pleased with the algorithm so far. I can guarantee you that the Algorithm of Doom (2007 algorithm) is not being used at Chesapeake. In the 07 algorithm the first set of matches is not random, but deterministic (sequential with the A, B, & C pools). Sorry to here the scheduler is not working well for your team but that could be poor parameter selection. This includes the selection of FAIR quality, which picks the best schedule from only 100,000 generated schedules (as opposed to 5,000,000 in BEST setting). I am not saying this is the case, but is a possibility.