Dean Ruffell didn't have time to react. He was shot from close range in the back of the head by The Ogres, a pair of 19-year-old twins from America.

The 17-year-old from The Island in Thames Ditton was slaughtered in broad daylight in Singapore in front of a baying crowd of hundreds of people.

But don't worry, Dean was just knocked out of the quarter-finals of the Halo 2 World Cyber Games event. More than 1.25million people entered and 700 from 67 countries reached the finals, which were held last fortnight in Singapore.

Back home in his bedroom in Thames Ditton, Dean is still hard at work. He plays Halo 2, the most successful first-person shoot-em up, between four and eight hours per day and has done so since the game was released, on November 11 2004.

"I remember the exact date. I bought the game, took it home and played it for about eight hours. I've played it every day since," he says.

The World Cyber Games (WCG) are billed as the Olympics of computer gaming.

With prize money of £1.44million, it is possibly the world's biggest, yet most low-profile, sporting event.

Dean and his partner, Mark Thurston, 21, from Guildford, lost to the eventual winners of the competition, who collected a £20,000 prize and are the world's best.

But they plan to get their revenge. Their team consists of himself, Harry Thomas, 17 from Thames Ditton, known in the gaming world as Lethal, Tony Sorial, 16, from Chesterfield, known as Dread, and Thurston, known as LA1.

They hope that their sponsor, Four King, the only company to sponsor professional gamers such as Dean, will pay for them to attend all seven legs of the Major League Gaming championships in America.

"I hope we get the chance to get to every leg. I'd love to be able to play the game for a living, but we're not yet at that level, so at the moment, I'm gonna have to settle for being an IT technician."

benl@london.newsquest.co.uk