Kosei Ichinose adds more to his impressive online records

Several days ago, Japanese poker pro Kosei “shinbunshi” Ichinose overcame a field of 374 entries at the Turbo Championship of Online Poker 2017 (TCOOP) Event 53: US$215 H.O.R.S.E. and shipped in US$13,673.75.

This recent victory came just three months after his 4^th place finish at the PokerStars Sunday Million for a sweet US$81,000 (deal made) payout and another US$10,719.38 for winning the US$109 Wrap-Up event days after.

For those who know Ichinose, or have at least heard of him, posting wins and running deep in online tournaments is his forte. He is considered one of the most decorated online Japanese player with stats under username K.Ichinose, mAdEInzIpang, and shinbunshi. He currently shows over US$300k in online profits under shinbunshi.

Ichinose’s poker beginnings

Alike many young players, Ichinose joined the poker bandwagon after being inspired by Chris Moneymaker, who turned an US$86 online satellite ticket to an incredible US$2.5 million by winning the WSOP 2003 Main Event. At the time, Ichinose was just a college student.

As poker gained in popularity, Ichinose got his feet wet by dabbling in low stakes Limit and No Limit games until he found more comfort online, posting good results in many big PokerStars events. He eventually went full time around 2007.

From Supernova Elite to Team Asia PokerStars Pro

After a few years grinding online, in 2010, Ichinose set his sights on one of the toughest online challenges: to achieve Supernova Elite status in PokerStars. Grinders know that attaining this is no quick walk in the park. Players must dedicate hours upon hours of multi-tabling to accrue one million VIP Player Points (VPPs) within a calendar year. It is practically a full time crawl requiring a lot of patience, game ethic, and self-discipline. Before the year ended, Ichinose triumphed the challenge and became the first Japanese national to ever achieve this goal.

The subsequent years saw Ichinose put more time in the Asian live tournament circuit. He was very active in 2013, earning numerous five-digit scores. In 2015, his achievements, both virtual and live, earned him an ambassadorship at PokerStars joining the likes of Bryan Huang, Celina Lin, Naoya Kihara, Vivian Im, and Aditya Agarwal under the banner of Team PokerStars Pro Asia.

Recently, Huang announced his departure from Team Asia. And although no announcement was made regarding the status of Ichinose, at the recent TCOOP HORSE event, he played under nickname “shinbunshi” with no spadie tagged to his name. It is possible that he may have also parted ways with PokerStars.

More live events for Ichinose in 2017?

With live poker events sprouting all over Asia last year, Ichinose was visible at many of the events held in Macau and in the Philippines. He recorded a profit in twelve events and pocketed his largest live score of US$83,297 at the HK$25,000 No Limit Hold’em ACOP Warm-Up for his third place finish.

With his newest live achievement, and with live poker events continuing to fill up Asia’s 2017 calendar, we may just start seeing Ichinose away from the screen and hunting down more and more live tournament takedowns.

Article by Triccia David