Category: Games & Sports

Build a Classroom Stock Market Game in Google Spreadsheet

There seems to be a recent push to teach personal finance concepts in high school. That makes perfect sense to us – a little less trigonometry and a little more compound interest is probably more useful in the long run. I was in 7th grade when I was first exposed to the Stock Market Game. Basically, everyone picked one stock, and we occasionally checked to see who was doing the “best” based on price appreciation.

While I’m not sure I really learned that much from that experience of watching some random number fluctuate around, maybe it did plant some subconscious seed of interest as I ended up pursuing a career in finance. I think the Stock Market Game would be better if supplemented with a lesson on exactly what a share of ownership in a corporation means (see What Makes a Good Business?). But anyways, I digress… Continue reading “Build a Classroom Stock Market Game in Google Spreadsheet”

What’s the expected value of your Powerball ticket?

As the Powerball jackpot grows to over $300 million, we start to wonder if maybe buying a ticket is “worth it.” While the lottery is “worth it” in that ticket sales goes to things like state education, buying tickets is typically not worth it for yo because the projected payoff is far less than the ticket price. Continue reading “What’s the expected value of your Powerball ticket?”

Play Jeopardy at home with this Mobile Spreadsheet

This is the third in our three-part series of designing spreadsheets entirely on our mobile devices. Part 1 was a New Year’s resolution keeper and Part 2 was a weighted lottery to make a group decision on where to go for lunch. Today we’ll build a spreadsheet on the iPad that allows you and your friends to play along with the Jeopardy TV show, all while keeping score for a friendly competition.

Continue reading “Play Jeopardy at home with this Mobile Spreadsheet”

Track New Year’s Resolutions on Mobile Sheets

This is the first in a series of posts focused on the Google Sheets app on our mobile phone, rather than the typical desktop spreadsheets. We use the mobile Google Sheets app to set our New Year’s Resolutions and track what percentage of days we have fulfilled our promises. Hopefully, having this tracker on our phone and nearby at all times makes it slightly easier to fulfill our resolutions! Continue reading “Track New Year’s Resolutions on Mobile Sheets”

Build a Secret Santa Spreadsheet

Christmas is here again, and while we at SpreadsheetSolving appreciate the festive spirit, our practical side always wonders “does every single friend need a gift from each of their other friends?”. And… “why can’t we just give cash?”

The game Secret Santa somewhat lessens this gift giving burden among a large group of people. In this game, each person is secretly assigned one other person in the group to give a gift to. Typically, when the person opens their gift, they try to guess who gave it to them. Great fun is had by all (in theory).

We can create a simple spreadsheet to set up the random assignment of people to others in a group. First we enter in a hypothetical list of names: Continue reading “Build a Secret Santa Spreadsheet”

Monte Carlo Simulation – Fantasy Football playoff predictor

How likely will you make the fantasy football playoffs? It’s week 11 of the Fantasy Football season, which means there’s only three more weeks until the Fantasy Football playoffs. All your hard work up to this point – drafting your team, closely following daily fantasy football podcasts and injury reports, and agonizing over who to play in your Flex spot – rests upon what happens in these next few weeks. Continue reading “Monte Carlo Simulation – Fantasy Football playoff predictor”

Build a sports league power ratings spreadsheet

Need a way to track results and calculate power ratings for your tennis, ping pong, chess, or video and board game leagues?

As you might guess from much of the content posted over the past couple years, we at Spreadsheetsolving are huge fans of sports and games. There’s something about competition that sharpens the senses and motivates you to do your best. There’s also something satisfying about there being a clear winner and a loser when the game is over.

So what can you do when you’ve organized a group to play tennis, ping pong, magic, etc. and you want a system to track results and assign people ratings based on their match histories?

imageimageimage

Continue reading “Build a sports league power ratings spreadsheet”

Pick up basketball: Should you shoot more 2 pointers or 3 pointers when you play winners’ take?

The NBA basketball season just started last week, and the three point shot is having its moment. Despite some high profile doubters, the Warriors are the reigning NBA champions due to very impressive three point shooting. Also, the total number of three pointers taken in the NBA has steadily risen over the past 35 years.

Is it better to take a three pointer or a two pointer? The theory behind this is pretty simple, and can be done without a spreadsheet. Because a three pointer is worth 50% more than a two pointer, if a team can hit three pointers with at least 2/3 the percentage that they hit two pointers, then they would be better off taking more three pointers. Continue reading “Pick up basketball: Should you shoot more 2 pointers or 3 pointers when you play winners’ take?”

A Simple Fantasy Football Auction Draft Spreadsheet

Last year, we demonstrated how someone can make a fantasy football draft spreadsheet to help make the best decision in each round of a traditional snake draft.  While most leagues use snake draft, eventually you might be faced with a league where someone suggests an auction draft.  They might cite something like this article to make their case.  At  first you might feel intimidated, but once you remember that every auction round is just a data driven decision, and that spreadsheets are great at solving data driven decisions, you can build something to give yourself the best chance to succeed! Continue reading “A Simple Fantasy Football Auction Draft Spreadsheet”

Pick your son’s sport based on predicted height and weight

Subtitle 1: Get your son into Harvard through the backdoor of sports!  (The other backdoor of legacy is significantly more difficult)

Subtitle 2: Why I might not have chosen baseball if I knew I’d end up weighing 155 pounds

Continue reading “Pick your son’s sport based on predicted height and weight”

How to Steal Baseball Signs with Spreadsheets

Back when I was in 11th grade, I was one of the benchwarmers on the high school baseball team. Aside from needing to be ready to go in for pinch running duties, we also got assigned various tasks like statkeeper, 1st base coach, foul ball retriever and batboy (that one was the worst). Everyone left over got assigned the vague job of sign-stealing. Usually our attempts to steal signs were futile – between the wide array of touches, wipes and tugs, there was just too much going on to really keep track. But what if there were some way of using spreadsheets to enhance our sign-stealing efforts?

Continue reading “How to Steal Baseball Signs with Spreadsheets”

What would the Lakers’ record be if Kobe Bryant was an average shooting guard?

The Lakers are off to a rough start this year – through 9 games they are 1-8, good enough for last place in the Western Conference. In this spreadsheet problem solving example, we’ll use spreadsheets to answer a pertinent question – if the legendary Kobe Bryant played like an average shooting guard, how would the Lakers have fared this year? Continue reading “What would the Lakers’ record be if Kobe Bryant was an average shooting guard?”