The world's top players in both the Yu-Gi-Oh! CCG and the Yu-Gi-Oh! video game will meet on August 10 at Madison Square Garden in New York City to determine the The Yu-Gi-Oh! World Championships in both fields.  In addition to the World Championships on Sunday, August 10, there will be open tournaments and activities that will provide the ultimate environment for fans to experience all the aspects of the CCG and video game.  Upper Deck and Konami of America will invite the top-five Yu-Gi-Oh! duelists from North America to compete with 18 duelists from around the world.  Each of the participants will win a trip to New York City and a chance to win titles and other highly sought after prizes.

The World Championships represent the apex of a massive pyramid of regional tournaments.  The North American participants in the Yu-Gi-Oh! CCG World Championships will be picked from the Duelist King Tournament system based on regional rankings.  Over 300,000 duelists in the United States have been competing every weekend at more than 1,300 participating hobby shops since August 2000 to gain a spot at the World Championships.  The number of participants both in terms of hobbyists and hobby shops demonstrates the continued importance of in-store gaming, which has become the foundation of the game industry's current prosperity (see 'The Ins And Outs Of In-Store Gaming, Part I' and 'Part II').

 A separate competition will be held for masters of the Yu-Gi-Oh video game. The video game duelists will engage in their preliminary competition on the Konami website where they can log in using a special 'Yugi Passport Code,' which is available in the July issue of the popular manga monthly Shonen Jump (on sale since June3).