Chen won his first professional match on the Main Tour beating Pankaj Advani 5–4 in the 2012 Wuxi Classic first qualifying round. He was whitewashed 0–5 by Simon Bedford in the next round.&lt;ref name="2012/13"&gt;&lt;/ref&gt; He won three matches to reach the final qualifying round of both the World Open and China Open, losing to Michael Holt (3–5) and Jamie Cope (4–5) respectively. Chen won through to the semi-finals of the minor ranking Asian Players Tour Championship Event 1 by defeating the likes of Tom Ford and Ben Woollaston, but lost 2–4 to Stephen Lee. His season ended when he was beaten 7–10 by Sam Baird in the first round of World Championship Qualifying, which saw him finish his first season on tour ranked world number 78.