Vishnu holds Mareco; Gupta shocked by Molino

Grandmaster-in-waiting V Vishnu Prasanna continued his dream run and held Argentine GM Sandro Mareco to a draw but Abhijeet Gupta suffered a shock defeat in the fifth round of the Grand Europe Albena International Chess Tournament here.
Abhijeet, a former world junior champion, lost to Brazilian International Master Roberto Junio Brito Molina.
The draw helped Vishnu stay in joint lead on 4.5 points out of a possible five and the Indian now shares the podium with Mareco, Armenian duo of Tigran Petrosian and Hrant Melkumyan; Vladislav Nevednichy of Roumania and legendry Grandmaster Evgeny Sveshnikov of Latvia.
Ashwin Jayaram shares the seventh spot on four points. In his fifth round game, Jayaram got the better off Turkish Yakup Erturan.

It was an otherwise sluggish day for the Indians as Anurag Mahamal shared the point with Grigor Grigorov of Bulgaria, Sagar Shah also achieved the same result against Danny Raznikov of Israel while Swapnil Dhopade also had to split the point with Alexsej Gorbatov of Russia.
N Raghavi, the lone Indian woman, suffered a defeat at the hands of Moldovan Diana Baciu.

With just four rounds remaining in the 30000 Euros tournament, Anurag Mahamal has 3.5 points in his kitty while Gupta, Shah and Dhopade have an identical three points apiece.
Vishnu Prasanna opted for the Hedgehog set up as black against Mareco who started with the English opening.

The middle game turned a bit exciting as the Argentinean made a foray on the queen side hoping to capitalise on his pawn majority there.