Esports | Microsoft Excel | Andrew Ngai — The Third Title in the First Live Las Vegas Final

On 9 December 2023, Andrew Ngai sat at a competition PC inside HyperX Arena at the Luxor in Las Vegas for the final stage of the Microsoft Excel World Championship 2023, an event that moved Excel competition from remote broadcasts into a live arena for the first time.

The Financial Modeling World Cup (FMWC) organized the championship, while Microsoft supported the competition and permitted the Microsoft Excel name; this was therefore an FMWC-run Excel Esports event rather than a Microsoft-operated software contest.

Sixteen competitors entered two semifinals, solving timed spreadsheet “cases” for points, with the lowest-ranked player removed every seven and a half minutes instead of everyone simply working until a fixed deadline.

The first case, Excel Superheroes, required competitors to model fictional characters with different strengths and forecast results across scenarios, turning formulas and correct submitted outputs into a live score rather than judging presentation style or financial prose.

A scoring-system problem initially removed Ngai from his semifinal, but organizers reviewed the situation and reinstated him after determining that the issue was with scorekeeping rather than his answers, creating a nine-person final after eight places had originally been set.

The final case used an EVE Online setting: competitors calculated mineral requirements, market costs, asteroid yields, and fleet-building quantities across seven levels, earning points for correct answers while the elimination clock continued to reduce the field.

Brandon Moyer was the first finalist eliminated, Diarmuid Early finished fourth, and the last three were Ngai, Michael Jarman, and Willem Gerritsen; Ngai built an early lead that held through the final countdown, with Jarman second and Gerritsen third.

The victory gave Ngai his third consecutive title after winning the competition’s 2021 and 2022 editions, but this championship was geographically different because the decisive work happened before a live audience at HyperX Arena rather than only through an online broadcast.

The pin marks HyperX Arena inside Luxor Hotel and Casino at 3900 South Las Vegas Boulevard, and the cover photograph shows Luxor’s illuminated exterior landmark in 2007, not the championship itself.

Primary sources: https://fmworldcup.com/about-us/ ; https://fmworldcup.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/Active-Cell-Schedule-Final.pdf ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UDGdPE_C9u8

Independent cross-checks: https://www.theverge.com/c/24133822/microsoft-excel-spreadsheet-competition-championship ; https://www.actuaries.asn.au/research-analysis/under-the-spotlight-with-the-microsoft-excel-king-andrew-ngai

Venue: https://hyperxarenalasvegas.com/ ; https://luxor.mgmresorts.com/en.html

Photo: Tobias Alt, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Luxor-Las_Vegas.jpg