Canberra data analyst Anatoli Lightfoot is a grand prix winner, albeit the kind that involves dragons and wizards rather than Formula One.
Lightfoot, 29, of Bruce, is hoping to continue his dominance in the Magic: The Gathering card game, also simply called Magic. He won the grand prix in Brisbane in 2007.
The game, created by a mathematics professor, has inspired the fictional card game Mystic Warlords of Ka'a, played on TV series The Big Bang Theory.
The real-life game apparently has about 12 million devotees including Lightfoot, who began playing in high school.
He is heading to an international grand prix in Melbourne from March 30.
Contestants will be seeking a share in the $US30,000 ($A27,850) prize pool and vying for invitations to the $A213,519 Magic Pro Tour.
Lightfoot is confident in his chances. ''I'm in with a shot. I'm hoping to prove I've still got it.
''I'd like to make the top eight of a Pro Tour.''
The game involves a battle between mighty wizards, known as ''Planeswalkers'', who use magical spells, items and creatures depicted on individual cards to defeat opponents.
Players start with 20 life points and aim to reduce their opponents' life points to zero.
Lightfoot was attracted to the game's fantasy themes in his teens and now favours its strategic side. ''There's a lot of elements and it's quite complicated.''
He said it had things in common with bridge and poker: players could bluff and had to access possibilities and probability.
Among players, there's Magic-specific language. ''It's a subculture on its own,'' Lightfoot said.
''If we have a conversation about [Magic], it's like Chinese to everyone else. They don't understand a word we're saying.''
The game has also had a lot of benefits for him. ''I've met some of my best friends through the game and it has given me an opportunity to travel around the world.''
Magic had been male-dominated from the start. ''It was hard for women to start playing in such an environment,'' he said.
''[Also a few players] give us a bad name in terms of their inability to hold a conversation with women.''
People with science or maths backgrounds are over-represented among fans, but it's not a prerequisite. ''One guy playing in Canberra is a professional kickboxer and quite a character.''
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