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Daniel Serna is grabbing his plastic guitar and hitting the road - as Albuquerque's first professional gamer.

The 20-year-old, who works as an assistant manager at an Albuquerque gas station, just signed a contract to play the video game "Guitar Hero" with a national pro gaming group called Team Pandemic.

The contract goes into effect May 1.

For Serna, that means all-expenses paid trips to Memphis, Louisville, Dallas, Orlando, Rome, London and possibly Sweden, a host of TV appearances on stations like G4, MTV and Spike, and the potential to make more than $45,000 a year.

For his team, it means breaking out from more traditional gaming competitions centered around shooting games like "CounterStrike," "Battlefield 2" and "Call of Duty" and moving into a more diverse array of events like "Guitar Hero" and "World of Warcraft."

It also means they get a cut of his winnings, but if he does well, he gets performance-based incentives, Serna said.

"Team Pandemic always places in every event. Period," Serna said. "With the addition of new games in several competitions, they wanted to compete in those as well. They contacted me and asked if I would represent them in `Guitar Hero.' Of course I said yes."

The deal is a big step up for the Serna - who clicks away at warp speed on the buttons of his plastic guitar pretty much nonstop when he's not working at his $8-an-hour day job.

But the day job likely won't get in the way for much longer, he said.

"If I win my first two events, I'll quit my job," Serna said. "Those two events would make me $8,000. I wouldn't need a day job at that point."

Under the contract, he has to practice for 30 hours a week and perform at a series of gaming events. The first two are Under Ground Gaming in Memphis, Tenn., on May 26-27 and the World Series of Video Games in Louisville, Ky., from June 21-24.

Serna, who goes by the gamer tag "Sephi," is also in an upcoming documentary on MTV about the game "Guitar Hero."

The Albuquerque host of the X-Topia console gaming tournaments, Jason Montoya, said as far as he knows, Serna is the first Albuquerque gamer to hit the big time.

Montoya is also president of the National Video Game Association, which operates in seven Western states.

"Good for Daniel," Montoya said. "That's awesome. It's interesting that Team Pandemic got into `Guitar Hero.' There must be some money to be made there."

Serna will also get a chance to see the world. Before playing the game, he had only been to California, Arizona and Nevada with his family, he said.

"Oh, and I was out of the country once - I went to Tijuana, Mexico, on a trip to Los Angeles," Serna said. "That's all I got, though."

The deal means he'll almost certainly be playing in London and Rome, and likely at the World Series of Gaming finals in Sweden at the end of the year, he said.

"The World Series of Gaming is basically a circuit tour, once a month," Serna said.

He will also play on stage at the Live Earth concert on July 7 - which will feature simultaneous performances by several bands in major cities across the globe.

"It's funny," Serna said. "It will be like musician, musician, musician, `Guitar Hero' player."

Montoya said he wonders if Serna might get burned out by all this gaming.

"I wonder if it will change the game for him," Montoya said. "If you have to do something, it's different than when you want to do something."

For his part, Serna doesn't see that happening anytime soon.

" `Guitar Hero' is one of those games that I've always wanted to do," Serna said. "Having to play the game is something I do anyway. It just means my girlfriend can't yell at me anymore for practicing so much."