Actually, Zatoichi - the famous blind swordsman who starred in over two dozen Japanese films and his opponent did not play chess. They undoubtedly played
Shogi (将棋 shōgi?, generals' chess) (
/ˈʃoʊɡiː/), also known as
Japanese chess, a two-player
strategy board game in the same family as
Western chess,
chaturanga, and Chinese
xiangqi, and is the most popular of a family of
chess variants native to
Japan.
Shōgi means general's (
shō 将) board game (
gi 棋).
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shogi This doesn't really have anything to do with the game here, but I'm a big fan of Zatoichi!