Yesterday I went to a tournament at my college's gaming group.  They had a Super Smash Bros. Brawl tournament and a Halo 3 tournament. I decided to to do the Halo 3 tournament.  The first issue that came up was that they started the tournament before registration was over, meaning that about 10 minutes into the tournament, they added in about 3 more people which screwed up the bracketing, causing the person in the new 5th quarter-final sections to be able to essentially BYE himself into the finals.  I ended up being in what would have been finals if that extra bracket wasn't added, and lost.  I lost 14-6.  Then the guy who beats me goes on to beat the guy who has played less matches than me 15-1. The people running the tournament were giving out 1st and 2nd place prizes, and because the other dude signed up later, he got the 2nd place prize.  I don't want to come off as saying "OMG I SHUD I HAV WON!", but the way they did that was stupid.  They don't know what kind of even they want to run.  They get prizes and try to run a tournament, which is more serious, but then they are really fast and loose with how to set everything up, a more casual thing to do.