V Vishnu Prasanna celebrated his new Grandmaster status by outwitting seasoned GM Boris Chatalbashev of Bulgaria to stay in joint lead after the end of the fourth round of Grand Europe Albena chess tournament here.
Winning his fourth game of the trot, the unassuming Prasanna shares the podium with Sandro Mareco of Argentina with a perfect score.
Having crossed the 2500 rating barrier required to become a Grandmaster as per FIDE rules, Prasanna will be looking for a career best performance on this black sea resort.
After a sedate start, highest rated Indian Abhijeet Gupta continued with his catching up act and defeated Frenchman Manuel Valles to inch closer to three points out of a possible four. Abhijeet has won two games with white but both his black games have ended in draws so far.
Also reaching three points was Ashwin Jayaram who played out a draw with Yurtseven Melih of Turkey and Anurag Mahamal who put it across Viktoriya Tarasova of Russia.
In other results involving Indians, Swapnil Dhopade lost the momentum and went down to Tigran Petrosian of Armenia, Sagar Shah recovered to post a victory at the expense of Janev Pavel of Bulgaria while N Raghavi lost to Ogulcan Kanmazalp of Turkey.
With five rounds still to come in the 30000 Euros prize money tournament, the two leaders are followed by nine players on 3.5 points apiece while Abhijeet and Jayaram share the 12th spot with 20 others.
