Tatev Abrahamyan Reaches 2400, Earns First GM Norm

11 years after earning her final IM norm, 37-year-old American WGM Tatev Abrahamyan crossed 2400 FIDE for the first time to become eligible for the IM title by winning the Budapest One Week August 2025 GM norm invitational tournament. Curiously, this makes Abrahamyan the first woman to become eligible for the IM title in a calendar year that has already seen two new female grandmasters.

Abrahamyan also earned her first GM norm in Budapest thanks to her 2613 performance rating, picking up a whopping 62 rating points. Her undefeated 7/9 score was particularly impressive considering that she entered the event as the third lowest-rated player. 

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Abrahamyan at the American Cup earlier this year (Photo courtesy Lennart Ootes/SLCC)

It’s been a good year for Abrahamyan, who is the current Chess Life cover subject for her runner-up finish in the 2025 American Cup earlier this year. But this performance rocketed her 64 places up the list of top women, moving her from just outside the top 100 to squarely within the top 50 at number 38, according to 2700chess.com.

Abrahamyan got off to a 2/2 start with a tactical win over Chinese FM Cong Dingzhou in Round 1 followed by a more positional win over Indian IM Sathvik Adiga, annotated below:

Thanks to some “luck” in the pairings, Abrahamyan then had to face the gauntlet of all three grandmasters in consecutive rounds. After drawing Hungarian GM Gabor Nagy peacefully, Tatev’s winning ways continued with a win over Vietnamese GM Huynh Minh Huy Nguyen in Round 4:

In Round 5, Abrahamyan drew Hungarian GM David Berczes to improve to a 4/5 score and remain on pace for a GM norm. But, remarkably, this had to be a bit of a disappointment, as she was the one pushing for a win the entire game.

After a calmer draw in Round 6 against Hungarian IM Agoston Juhasz, Abrahamyan’s Round 7 win over Austrian FM Peter Balint brought both the 2400 rating goal and the GM norm into clear focus.

If she could defeat Hungarian WGM Jovana Rapport in Round 8, Abrahamyan would reach her rating goal and only need a last-round draw to earn the GM norm. But a draw would put tremendous pressure on the final round.

For most of the penultimate game, Rapport was holding onto equality, but around move 40, Abrahamyan started pressing. Without a second time control, however, the resulting endgame was as tense as the players went back and forth mostly on the increment. But, after a few close calls, Tatev emerged victorious:

With her rating goal in hand, Abrahamyan went on to draw WGM Zsoka Gaal in just 12 moves in the final round to clinch her first GM norm as well as clear first (a full point ahead of Sathvik) in Budapest. All games from the event can be reviewed here.