Winners get a week long stay in the historic Chinese town

The Acon5 tournament pits Britain's best players of Counter-Strike and Warcraft III against each other following regional play-offs.

Winners of national heats win hardware prizes and an all-expenses-paid trip to the global final.

The Chinese final will see winners from 20 nations competing for a share of a $50,000 (�26,000) cash prize pot.

Sharp-shooters

The UK leg of the Acon5 tournament is being held at Uttoxeter racecourse this weekend.

The tournament will bring together gamers who have made it through qualifying events held at gaming centres around the country over the past few weeks.

These qualifiers have produced about 30 top Warcraft III players and eight Counter-Strike teams who will vie for the hardware prizes and trip to China.

Also top players from the networked gaming event being held alongside the Acon5 tournaments will get a chance to take on the qualifiers.

Warcraft III is a real-time strategy game which pits different races, such as humans, orcs and night elves, against each other in a fantasy world.

Favourites

Counter-Strike is the most popular online game and revolves around two teams playing against each other using a variety of firearms. In each round one side plays as terrorists and the other as counter-terrorists.

Four-Kings Intel, the UK's top pro-gaming clan, is taking part in Acon5 but Philip Wride, manager of the team, said it had made slight changes to its Counter-Strike team line-up because the tournament is organised nationally.

"I think we are down as favourites for the event but anything can happen on the day," he said.

The venue for the global final will be Xian in China which was chosen by a poll of those taking part in regional and national qualifying competitions.