Sakura Ishimoto

Sakura Ishimoto (石本 さくら, Ishimoto Sakura; born January 27, 1999) is a Japanese women's professional shogi player ranked 2-dan.

Sakura Ishimoto
Ishimoto at a human shogi [ja] event in November 2019
Native name	石本さくら
Born	(1999-01-27) January 27, 1999 (age 26)
Hometown	Suita, Osaka Prefecture
Career
Achieved professional status	September 1, 2016(2016-09-01) (aged 17)
Badge Number	W-57
Rank	Women's 2-dan
Teacher	Nobuo Mori [ja] (7-dan)
Tournaments won	1
Websites
JSA profile page

Early life, amateur shogi and apprenticeship

Ishimoto was born on January 27, 1999, in Suita, Osaka Prefecture.^[1] She first became interested in shogi when she was a fourth-grade elementary school student after seeing some classmates playing the game. She decided that she wanted to learn how to play the game and started attending a local shogi school shortly thereafter.^[2]

In 2010, she finished runner-up in the girl's division of the 4th Elementary School Student Girl's Meijin Tournament [ja] as well as in third place in the 3rd Elementary School Komehime Meijin [ja] tournaments as a sixth-grade elementary school student.^[3][4] Two years later in 2012, she won the girl's division of the 33rd All Japan Junior High School Student Invitational Shogi Tournament [ja] as a second-year junior high school student.^[5]

Ishimoto was accepted into the Japan Shogi Association (JSA) Kansai Branch's training group system.^[2] Although still an amateur player, she defeated a number of women's shogi professionals in the preliminary rounds of the 3rd (2013) and 4th (2014) Women's Ōza [ja] tournaments.^{[2][6][7][8][9]} In 2016, she was promoted to Class B1 of the training group system when she was a 17-year-old third year senior high school student, thus meeting the criteria for the rank of provisional women's professional 3-kyū. She petitioned the JSA, with shogi professional Nobuo Mori [ja] as her sponsor, to be allowed to compete as a women's professional and was awarded the rank of 2-kyū and full professional status based on her prior performance in the 2013 and 2014 Women's Oza tournaments.^[2][10]

Women's shogi professional

Ishimoto defeated Kanna Suzuki in the finals of the 3rd Yamada Women's Professional Challenge Cup [ja] in August 2017 to win her first tournament as a professional.^[11] She advanced to the finals of the same tournament the following year, but was unsuccessful in her attempt to repeat as tournament champion, losing to Saya Nakazawa.^[12]

Promotion history

Ishimoto's promotion history is as follows.^[13]

• 2-kyū: September 1, 2016
• 1-kyū: February 20, 2017
• 1-dan: March 9, 2017
• 2-dan: December 14, 2020

Note: All ranks are women's professional ranks.

Major titles and other championships

Ishimoto has yet to appear in a major title match, but she has won one official non-title women's professional shogi tournament.^[14]