I have 8 guys that want to play in a tournament at work.  I would like some advice on how to go about getting it going.  Any suggestions?

beer.

Beer!!!!  I am there KingoftheCastle.

yes, put some sleeping pills in the bosses coffee.

You could have them each pay in like $5 or something then pay 1st-2nd-3rd $30-$5-$5 or just all $40 to the winner.  Also have you thought about if you're going to do it like a knockout tournament, maybe all in one day, or you could make a cross table and have each person play everyone else and have it take a little longer. 

You could also do it like a swiss tournament, first just random pairings, but then winners play winners, losers play losers, then in the next round the people with 2 wins are paired, people with 1 win are paired, etc.  After, lets say 4, round you have a winner.  Also this way you also get a 2nd, 3rd etc place.

Also time control, are you going to use chess clocks at all?  If so set a time limit, G/30 or G/60 or whatever you want.

So you have money (or not) , the type of pairings , and a time limit or not.  This info should take up one line on a sign up sheet, print it out and have them sign up.  You can set a date before or after you get names.

If it's an everyone plays everyone once type of competition then maybe just make a cross table where they can sign up (like a graph with players names on the left and numbers on the top, if player one beats player 5 then in player 1's row he gets a "W" in his 5th column, while player 5 gets a "L" in his first column) put it somewhere and have them record the result as they find time to play -- when everyone is done add up the wins :)

thanks orangehonda.  For the time and for taking my question seriously.  All Armadillo thinks about is women and beer.  And not in that order!