Tunisian chess champion Zoubaier Amdouni, FIDE Master (Elo 2186).
PANAJI
Participating in the FIDE World Cup 2025 for a number of countries' chess players has been more of prestige than anything else, and representing their country by virtue of being a national champion. And one such example is Zoubaier Amdouni, the Tunisian National Chess Champion 2025, a FIDE Master who made a first-round exit losing to Hungarian GM Benjamin Gledura.
Pleased to represent the country and gain experience from the prestigious event, Amdouni is not new to the big stage. He has also been in the Chess Olympiads with the Tunisian national team, starting when he was relatively young as a chess player, back in 2000, and to the most recent 2024 edition in Budapest.
"In the Chess World Cup in Goa, I was preparing to play a good player like Gledura, and I probably put a lot of pressure on myself. In the first round, I was preparing to play with white in the first game, but I only discovered on the board that I had black. This misunderstanding was due to the fact I was not present at the opening ceremony when this was made known," the Tunisian National Chess Champion lamented.
Speaking on his last visit to India to play chess, Amdouni stated,"I was here for the Chennai Olympiad in 2022, and we were ranked 44 which was something special. I was on Board 3 and had a performance rating of around 2400." His general impression on India is of praise. "There is good hospitality here, I like the people, they are very friendly and they love chess. The most interesting thing about India is that chess players are famous and the game is part of Indian culture. It gives them pride to be a chess player. On the other hand, chess in Tunisia is not that famous. Most people just know about football and other ball games," he mentioned.
Speaking to this paper, he disclosed that he began playing chess when he was a little bit older. "I was 13-years-old, when I learnt to play chess at a small club in my region, Beja. I then began to participate in many tournaments. My first tournament was in the U-14 category wherein I finished 5th. That was back in 2000. But after that, I began to like the game more, started training and getting better every day," Amdouni reminisced. Two years after his first competitive tournament, and at age 16, Amdouni travelled to Bled, Slovenia for the Chess Olympiad, as the youngest member of the Tunisian team. "I was given the opportunity to play in a round against UAE just for the experience and it motivated me. I was pitted against an IM and lost," he recalled.
While Amdouni started with playing chess tournaments in Tunisia, he began to move overseas to play in countries like UAE, Qatar and Algeria.
To be the lone representative in the Chess World Cup in Goa, Amdouni won the National Chess Championship in Sousse, Tunisia, in February and thereby qualified.. "It was a closed 11-round tournament featuring 12 players - six from the national team and six other qualifiers. I ended up winning the Championship with 9 points," he proudly said.
While chess is still not hugely popular in Tunisia, it is looking up. "We will have our yearly GM International in the island of Djerba, in February 2026. Last year we had participation from the likes of Nihal Sarin, Bassem Amin, Alexei Shirov and Vasyl Ivanchuk. We also have a very good chess academy called BICA, in Monastir, which will soon organize a chess festival," Amdouni stated.
Amdouni, with an Elo rating of 2186, is motivated to keep working on his game, and get better. "I am not a professional chess player, and I work as a sports teacher. When I finished studying, I chose this career as I wanted to stay in chess," he divulged. As a matter-of-fact, due to different reasons like misunderstandings with the National Federation and the pandemic, Amdouni took a sabbatical from the game. which stunted his growth as a chess player. But now with things better at home and with his Federation, he dreams big, and looks to play more tournaments. " I will be travelling to Kuwait next week to play in an invitational Arab Championship. I strive to first become an IM, and eventually a GM," he concluded.
