 Ishimoto was accepted into Japan Shogi Association (JSA) Kansai Branch's training group system.Although still only 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.