Hichem Hamdouchi

Who is Hichem Hamdouchi?

Hichem Hamdouchi is the strongest Moroccan chess player and one of the leading African grandmasters.

Hamdouchi has won the Moroccan Chess Championship eleven times, first in 1988 at 15 years old, when he was first allowed to play in important tournaments. In the same year, in the tournament of Casablanca, he was noticed for his talent and qualified for the national team of Morocco to participate in the Chess Olympiad of 1988 in Thessaloniki. At the age of 17 he managed to qualify in the African selection for the world championship for teams in Lucerne. Here he made remarkable victories over Jeroen Piket, John Fedorowicz and Ye Jiangchuan.

In 1990 at the 29th Chess Olympiad in Novi Sad he scored 8/11, after which he took a break from chess for his studies. At the age of 20, in 1992 he played successfully in several European tournaments. In the same year he played at the 30th Chess Olympiad with a performance of 7.5/11. He won in Sitges and Ceuta in 1992, where he picked up his first grandmaster norm. In 1993 he starting studying economy at the university of Montpellier. In December 1993 he won the masters in Montpellier with 7/9, picking up his second norm. A few months later he was awarded the grandmaster title. At that time he was one of the three African grandmasters, the other two being the Tunisian players Slim Bouaziz and Slim Belkhodja.