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]
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]
Notes: 1. No symbol denotes JSA affiliation 2. An asterisk (*) denotes LPSA affiliation 3. A cross (†) denotes unaffiliated. 4, A two-barred cross (‡) denotes a JSA apprentice school player.
