Originally Posted by ultramarina
Looking at the results, he was assigned to low-ranked K/1 players, presumably because he was unranked? The kids he beat are pretty far down in the overall standings. I am guessing that when he plays a few more tournaments and gets a ranking he will be assigned to harder players.
Most American chess tournaments are run according to the "Swiss system" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament , in which players who have won the same number of games in the tournament so far are paired against each other. The section you play in and how you do in a tournament determines the quality of your opponents more than your rating does.