is a Japanese
women's professional shogi player ranked 2-
dan
Dan or DAN may refer to:
People
* Dan (name), including a list of people with the name
** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark
* Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa
**Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoi ...
.
Early life
Ishimoto was born on January 27, 1999, in
Suita
is a city located in northern Osaka Prefecture, Japan. As of October 1, 2016, the city has an estimated population of 378,322 and a population density of 9,880 persons per km². The total area is 36.11 km².
The city was founded on April 1, ...
,
Osaka Prefecture. 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.
In 2010, she finished runner-up in the girl's division of the 4th as well as in third place in the 3rd tournaments as a sixth-grade elementary school student. Two years later in 2012, she won the girl's division of the 33rd as a
second-year junior high school student.
Ishimoto was accepted into the
Japan Shogi Association
The , or JSA, is the primary organizing body for professional shogi in Japan. The JSA sets the professional calendar, negotiates sponsorship and media promotion deals, helps organize tournaments and title matches, publishes shogi-related materia ...
(JSA)
Kansai Branch's
training group system.
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) tournaments.
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 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.
Shogi professional
Ishimoto defeated
Kanna Suzuki in the finals of the 3rd in August 2017 to win her first tournament as a professional. 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.
Promotion history
Ishimoto's
promotion history is as follows.
* 2-
kyū
is a Japanese term used in modern martial arts as well as in tea ceremony, flower arranging, Go, shogi, academic tests and other similar activities to designate various grades, levels or degrees of proficiency or experience. In Mandarin Chi ...
: 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.
References
External links
* ShogiHub
Ishimoto, Sakura
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ishimoto, Sakura
Japanese shogi players
Living people
Female shogi players
Professional shogi players from Osaka Prefecture
1999 births