The Microsoft Excel World Championship kicks off again on Saturday 10th, with the 256 qualifiers not going head-to-head in knockout format this year, but sorted into eight groups of 32, and having a double-elimination series of online contests over two Saturdays. First two rounds on the 10th, three more on the 17th for people who haven't yet been eliminated.
I do like the sheer intricacy of the process, such that you can draw colourful diagrams of how it works:
At the end of it, there'll be 8 people qualified for the "semi-finals" live in Las Vegas, and another 40 qualified for the "quarter-finals", where they'll be joined by winners of the national competitions from around the world, and people who've come through the "last chance qualification round" the previous day. 15 quarter-finalists go through to the semi-finals to join those eight, plus top seed, reigning champion and European Open winner Diarmuid Early. And the 24 semi-finalists are whittled down to 12 finalists, and one champion.
But that's very much in the future, and I doubt I'll be coming anywhere near it. Let's look at my group for the online rounds! Each group has one of the top 8 seeds (or seeds 2-9, with Dim Early being already qualified), and then 3 of the remaining top-32, and then the other qualifiers randomly distributed.
By my count I'm ranked 12th in the group if you put us in order of "XQ" points (an Elo kind of thing based on results since 2023) and 13th if you put us in order of "World Ranking" (based on the results of 2026). That would suggest I should finish in the top half of the first round, and it would be a great achievement if I go on to finish in the top half of the green sixteen in the second round. Although there's still a pretty good chance I'd finish in the bottom half both times and be eliminated.
Honestly, the fun of looking at the competition structure almost outweighs the fun of competing in it. I'm a real geek for that kind of thing.
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