Masumi Chino is one of the most popular soft-tip players in Japan, nicknamed "the Prince." In 2014 he won the PERFECT tour's season title and also took the season's best PPD and best MPR, making him the first player to sweep all three. This profile covers how he got started, that 2014 season, the international title he won in Hong Kong in 2015, and how he talks about his own game.
Who Is Masumi Chino: A Tokyo Kid Who Picked Up Darts in High School
Chino was born on September 28, 1987, in Tokyo. He stands 184 cm and throws right-handed. One summer in his second year of high school, a relative took him to a shop with a soft-tip machine and he threw darts for the first time. The following January that relative opened Cafe Bamboo, put a machine in the corner, and Chino started coming by after school to chase Count-Up records. It is still his home shop. He signed with equipment maker DMC in 2007, finished second in the D-CROWN tour's season standings in 2010 and 2011, and won them in 2012, making him the last season champion before D-CROWN folded.
2014: PERFECT Season Champion and the First Triple Crown
After D-CROWN folded, Chino moved in 2012 to PERFECT, Japan's pro soft-tip tour, and went a year and a half without a win. His first PERFECT title came in June 2013, when he beat Nobuhiro Yamamoto in the final in Ehime. He says that slump is what set up 2014. How he got through it was simple: keep entering every event no matter how badly things were going, because he had watched plenty of players fade out after a dry spell. He told himself he would never disappear.
In 2014 he won six events, including four in a row from Rounds 13 to 16, and clinched the season title with two rounds still to play by beating Seigo Asada in the Kumamoto final. That four-event streak was a PERFECT first at the time (Asada broke it the next year). At the season awards he also took best PPD (average score per dart in 01) and best MPR (average marks per round in Cricket, and here is how to read both numbers), making him the first player to sweep all three since PERFECT began publishing those stat rankings in 2012. That same year he reached the final in Yokohama (Round 10) and lost to Yuki Yamada, who had just come back from stomach cancer surgery.
2015: Champion in Hong Kong, a First-Round Exit at SUPER DARTS
In April 2015, Chino traveled to Hong Kong as Japan's representative, the PERFECT season champion, for Super One at the 11th ADA International Darts Tour (the Asian Darts Association's event: men's singles, one top player per country). He faced Lourence Ilagan of the Philippines in the final, a first-to-three-legs match in 701. They went the full five legs, and Chino finished the last one on double 18 to take the title. According to PERFECT's official series on him, he was the first Japanese player to win Super One.
That same year he played DARTSLIVE's SUPER DARTS as an invited player and lost his first match to Adrian Gray; in 2017 he topped the fan vote and earned another spot.
Steel-Tip Darts: The PDC Challenge Tournament and the Worlds
Chino also throws steel-tip. In 2016 he won the PDC Challenge Tournament The Final in Japan, which earned him a place in the preliminary round of the 2017 PDC World Championship, where he lost 1-2 to Malaysia's Tengku Shah. In the 2014 final of the same event, his opponent was Haruki Muramatsu, and Chino finished as runner-up.
His Style: Precision Machine, Poker Face
PERFECT's official series calls him a "precision machine": steady release, almost no expression on his face. He says the poker face is mostly natural, and he only holds his emotions back deliberately when they are about to show. After a loss he reviews only his mindset, not his technique, because doubting his technique would cost him confidence. He watches the video, then resets, which he calls "kirikae" (switching gears). His idea of a perfect game is a nine-darter in 01 and nine marks every round in Cricket (an MPR of 8 or higher). His Count-Up personal best is 1290 out of a possible 1440, and his stance is open, to the left of the throw line, with almost all his weight on the right foot.
Where Chino Is Now
In the yearly PERFECT rankings he finished second in 2016 and 2017 and third in 2018. His results have moved around since, but he was still playing PERFECT tour events in 2026. In a 2015 interview he said he wants to keep competing until he is 60. Phoenix's official Virtual Darts system also features him as a virtual player, and AI DARTS runs Phoenix machines, though whether that mode is switched on in the shop is best confirmed on site.
Chino's career started with one machine and a Count-Up record. Want to read about more Japanese players? Check out our guide to Japan's top darts players. If you want your own scores to stick around, take a look at the member system. AI DARTS runs its Phoenix machines 24 hours a day, and the menu is here.