Indian Grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi played out a hard-fought draw with Israel's Tamir Nabaty to stay joint third after the sixth round of the Grand Europe Golden Sands International Chess Tournament here.
Taking his tally to five points out of a possible six, Gujrathi remained half a point behind overnight joint leaders Zybnyk Hracek of Czech Republic and Vladislav Nevednichy of Romania, who played out a draw to inch to 5.5 points.
Another Indian Grandmaster S Arun Prasad joined Gujrathi in third spot defeating Alessandro Bonafede of Italy. It's a six-way tie for the third spot with three rounds still to come in the 40,000 Euros prize money tournament.
As many as 17 players including highest rated Indian in the fray -- Abhijeet Gupta are still in with a chance for a podium finish having 4.5 points apiece.
Apart from Gupta, Grandmasters M R Venkatesh, GN Gopal, Deep Sengupta and International Masters N Srinath and Ashwin Jayaram are the other Indians having 4.5 points in their kitty.
N Srinath scored an upset victory over GM Avetik Grigoryan of Armenia, G N Gopal drew with top seed Tigran Petrosian, Ashwin Jayaram held Bulgarian Rusev Krasimir to a draw while Venkatesh drew with Gupta in a game of fluctuating fortunes. Deep Sengupta won the all Indian duel outlasting Murali Karthikeyan.
The aspirations of Grandmaster Sahaj Grover suffered a setback in the sixth round as he was outdone by Dragisa Blagojevic of Montenegro.
Vidit Gujrathi went for the English opening and Nabaty had little trouble in maintaining the balance. The late middle game took an unexpected turn but the Indian survived the onslaught to restore parity in the end.
Abhijeet Gupta faced a topical variation in the Catalan opening by Venkatesh and could boast of a positional advantage after reaching the endgame.
However, a few inaccuracies saw the position drift in favour of Venkatesh. Abhijeet found the right ways towards the end.
