India finish at the bottom

India's poor performance continued as it lost its seventh and final league match to Hungary, 1.5-2.5, to finish at the bottom of the heap in the Team World Cup of chess for the visually impaired at Dusseldorf, Germany, on Sunday.

National champion Swapnil Shah managed a creditable draw against Hungarian number one Pal Eros while another youngster in the side Shirish Patil scored a fine win over Gyorgy Nemes, according to a statement from the All India Chess Federation for the blind on Monday.

The other two players in the Indian team, Madan Bagayatkar and Vasant Patil, however, failed to impress, losing to Istvan Vojan and Joszef Denes respectively.

India are at the bottom of the table, with Poland and Russia at the top two places, the release added.

Inexperience could have been one of the reasons for the Indians' poor showing as they have just three years' exposure on the international scene while the other 11 countries in the fray have been playing competitve international chess for more than 40 years, the release said.

Results (seventh round) league: Germany (2.5) beat Lithuania (1.5), Hungary (2.5) beat India (1.5), Russia (2.5) beat Ukraine (1.5), Slovenia (2) drew with Croatia (2), Yugoslavia (2.5) beat Romania (1.5), Poland (4) beat Spain (0).

Final placings: 1. Poland, 2. Russia, 3. Ukraine, 4. Romania, 5. Spain, 6. Yugoslavia, 7. Germany, 8. Croatia, 9. Slovenia, 10. Hungary, 11. Lithunia, 12. India.