For the first time in the history of Bangladesh, 1000 gamers will be chosen to register and thus compete in the WCG 2005 Bangladesh Championship, a preliminary gaming competition that will open the road for two lucky winners to the WCG 2005.

"Two winners from these thousand gamers will be sent to Singapore where they will participate in the Finals of the World Cyber Games 2005 in November," said Md. Irfan Hussain, program director and chief co-ordinator, WCG 2005 Bangladesh Championship and a member of F1 Management Limited.

F1 Management Ltd. is a strategic partner of WCG and has earned the sole authority to organise a gaming tournament at a national level under the Flag of WCG. This was announced at a press briefing last week at a local restaurant.

The winners from the tournament will represent Bangladesh at the grand finals. The overall rules and regulations, dates for competition and the breakdown of events were discussed at the conference.

The official sponsor for the WCG Bangladesh Championship will be djuice and Bashundhara Group will be sponsoring the venue.

"In order to be selected for the registration, a participant has to answers some questions and send them through sms to 2005 from a djuice number," said Hussain.

The questions can be found at the official website for the local tournament http://bd.worldcyb ergames.com and also through registration packages, which can be obtained from the Registration Booth at the Bashundhara City Shopping Complex.

The last date for sending the answers is August 13. The first 1000 highest number of SMS senders will be chosen to play in the WCG 2005 Bangladesh Championship.

Once selected, these participants will be informed via SMS and will be asked to register in person for the event at the Bashundhara City by August 20. The registration fee for each participant has been fixed at Taka 200. Participants of any age and gender can participate in this event.

The WCG 2005 Bangladesh Championship will kickoff on August 26 at the Bashundhara City. The games to be played at this three-day event are Need For Speed Underground 2 and FIFA 2005. A maximum of 500 participants for each game (total 1000) shall be selected for playing. However, a player cannot register for both the games.

The games shall be played on a Local Area Network (LAN) and referees appointed by F1 Management shall monitor every single game.

"We shall setup 50 PCs for the tournament, each powered by a Sparkle GeForce FX series advanced 3D graphics engine," said Hussain. Sparkle will also sponsor the air tickets and accommodations for the two winners to the final round.

A total of 9 knockout rounds including a final round will be played for each game before a winner gets selected. In a round where there are odd number of participants, a participant shall be given "Auto-Birth", i.e. he/she will automatically move to the next round, provided that a list of given criterion has been satisfied by the participant. For further information on the tournament one may login to the website.

"Due to lack of time, we obtained a special permission to arrange the tournament this year. We hope to arrange a nationwide tournament next year in six major metropolitan cities of the country," said Hussain when asked about the prospective future of WCG events in Bangladesh.

Ever since its initiation in 2000, the World Cyber Games has persistently set standards in global game competitions and also provided comprehensive and entertaining game-related content to the worldwide gamers and general audience.

Around 642 participants from 63 countries participated in the Final rounds of WCG 2004 held at San Francisco, USA, last year. WCG authorities believe that the number will rise up to 800 participants from 70 different countries, this year.