Short read: ‘It’s the golden age of spreadsheet geekery’

Equity analysts sometimes get accused as ‘drag and drop’ champions alluding to the feature in Microsoft’s spreadsheet tool Excel, when they ‘forecast’ future cashflows often without a strong basis of business understanding. The shortcoming aside, equity analysts like several other professionals have marvelled at the power of Excel to crunch large swathes of data using the tool’s plethora of clever features for problem solving and decision making. Little did we know that such is the fascination for the tool in the world of Excel geeks that solving problems on Excel is an e-sport with a world championship of its own.

“The world championship finals in Las Vegas was described as a “crazy” experience by Mr Male. Held in an e-sport arena, hundreds of people come to cheer on those participating. As well as the wrestling style winners belt, there is a $60,000 (£45,726) prize. Mr Male competed in this year’s world championship and is also a commentator for the annual event.  “It’s tough, the level is very, very high. It’s an experience that’s for sure,” he said. “You’ve got a crowd with banners for their favourite players and you’ve got commentators. “We want to inspire the next generation of Excel geeks and superstars.””

But what is competitive excel and how is it an e-sport?

“Competitive excel has been around for about 20 years and is essentially a puzzle solving competition, thinking logically about how you can create a general solution to a question which is scalable and fast. There is a story line to go along with the problem, and pressure is added by the process being timed. It requires a logical and creative thought process.

Historically, the game has been solely maths focused, but there has since been the inclusion of more problem solving questions like solving a maze, a poker hand or sorting kings and queens and the battles they fought in.

….During a game, competitors are given files of jumbled data and scenarios or ‘cases’ that require sorting, based on a question, within the quickest time. At the start of the first round they are all sent an excel file at the same time and have a 30-minute window to answer as many questions in that file as they can.  There are seven levels of questions that increase in difficulty, along with some bonus questions.”

If you fancy your Excel skills, you might want to give it a shot here.