I joined this tourney (1200-1499) and before I joined it said there were 22 players.  After I joined I counted 8 players that had a rating of 1200.

I viewed one of these profiles and they had joined chess.com today.

Is this coincidence that a bunch of new players go and play a tourney before any other rated standard games, or were these accounts made just to win a tourney?

It seemed suspicious to me so I withdrew, but after the tourney had started I checked again and all of the 1200s were gone?

You viewed one profile and then assumed all 8 were new players?  

if the rating is exactly 1200, it's actually a fair assumption, probably high 90%'s accurate.

Haha that was how I started here... When you to the live-view you see a big button 'starting in...' I pressed it :P 

@rooperi

That was a nice round number you pulled right of your ass.

Well, the probability that anybody's rating is exactly a multiple of 100 is only 1%.

If you find a 8 out of 22 with ratings exactly 1200, given that we know new players start at exactly 1200, I'm pretty confident high 90's is quite close.

Maybe someone with statistical skill can figure out the real probability.

I am very curious as to why, after the tournament had started, all the 1200's were gone.

The reason I didn't check all the profiles is that the tournament was about to start and I wanted to withdraw.

I don't know how to check who is in a tournament without first joining it myself.