Sakura Ishimoto | |
---|---|
event in November 2019 | |
Native name | 石本さくら |
Born | January 27, 1999 |
Hometown | Suita, Osaka Prefecture |
Career | |
Achieved professional status | September 1, 2016 | (aged 17)
Badge Number | W-57 |
Rank | Women's 2-dan |
Teacher | Nobuo Mori (7-dan) |
Tournaments won | 1 |
Websites | |
JSA profile page |
Sakura Ishimoto (石本 さくら, Ishimoto Sakura, born January 27, 1999) is a Japanese women's professional shogi player ranked 2-dan.
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[3][4] Two years later in 2012, she won the girl's division of the 33rd All Japan Juniro High School Student Invitational Shogi Tournament as a second-year junior high school student.[5]
as well as in third place in the 3rd Elementary School Komehime Meijin tournaments as a sixth-grade elementary school student.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 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 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]
Ishimoto defeated Kanna Suzuki in the finals of the 3rd Yamada Women's Professional Challenge Cup 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]
Ishimoto's promotion history is as follows.[13]
Note: All ranks are women's professional ranks.
Ishimoto has yet to appear in a major title match, but she has won one official non-title women's professional shogi tournament.[14]