Young Aryan finishes 3rd, Harika poor 29th at Abu Dhabi Int'l

India's celebrated GM Harika Dronavalli finished a disastrous 29th, even as 15-year-old GM Aryan Chopra finished a creditable third at the 24th Abu Dhabi International Chess Festival, that concluded today.
Chopra with ELO Rating of 2507 beat Leven Pantsulaia of Georgia in 42 moves to finish with 6.5 points. Chopra is India's second youngest to become Grandmaster after Parimarjan Negi.
The nine-round tournament was won by GM Amin Bassem of Egypt with 7.5 points while celebrated Briton GM Nigel Short was runner-up with seven points.
For India, IM NR Vignesh drew with Constantin Lupulescu of Romania to finish tied 11th with six points. Another Indian GM SP Sethuraman also had six points, beating IM Saveliy Golubov of Russia, but finished 15th due to inferior progressive score.

In 18th place was GM Murali Karthikeyan with six points.
Harika's 29th place finish with 5.5 points was due to an inferior progressive score.
IM Abhimanyu Puranik at 19th place and GM Shardul Gagare at 22nd also finished above Harika. The notable name to finish after Harika was GM Neelotpal Das, who ended 31st and GM Abhijeet Gupta, who finished at 36th.