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 Team Chess Championship 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 started studying economics at the
University of Montpellier. In December 1993 he won the masters tournament in
Montpellier with 7/9, gaining 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. In 1994 he won the Masters tournament in Casablanca and in 1995 he became
Arab Chess Champion in
Dubai, a performance which he would repeat in 2002 and 2004. In 1996 he won again the strong grandmaster tournament in Montpellier, where he studied business now. After finishing his studies in 1998, he settled down in
Spain and won tournaments in
Dos Hermanas,
Bolzano and
Djerba. He won once again in Montpellier in 2001 and in the same year became
African Chess Champion ahead of South African
Watu Kobese. In 2002 he won the open in
Nice,
Belfort and
Coria del Rio. In January 2003 he was ranked 75th in the world with a rating of 2615. In the
FIDE World Chess Championship 2004 in
Tripoli he progressed to the third round, where he was eliminated 0.5-1.5 by eventual runner-up
Michael Adams. In 2005 he won in
Castelldefels, in 2006 in
Salou and in 2007 in
Saint-Affrique. At the
European Club Cup in October 2007, he played for the Basque team Gros Xake Taldea. In 2009 Hamdouchi transferred to the
French Chess Federation. and was a member of the French team that won the silver medal at the
European Team Chess Championship in
Warsaw. In 2016 he transferred back to the Moroccan Chess Federation. ==References==