ok, so at the bottom right corner of my online chess, theres a box. This box says "Join a tournament". Within this box is about 5 different tournaments. one of those tournaments says, 1201-1500. My current rating is around 1400. So i thought ok ill join this one. I click the link and i register. That was yesterday.

I log in today, and have a note from the tournament director or whoever he is, saying that I MUST join a certain group to play in this tournament. I dont care for anyone telling me I MUST do anything so of course i will not join.

My question is: Do I not have every right to join this tournament since it was in the list of tournaments for ME to join on MY page?

If this was a private tournament, then it should not have allowed me to register if i did not meet the requirements in the first place should it?

You will note tournaments where you are ineligible due to rating also appear on your page. You cannot join those and yet there they are.

Other restrictions that are automatically enforced, at the time of registration, are time/move average and timeout ratio.

Tournament directors may set restrictions that have to be manually enforced. In this example my assumption is the tournament is being used for recruiting. Some other cases where manual removal is required: age, nationality, ...