What are the general principles?

I learned the basic rules to shogi a few years ago now, but I still haven't got a feel of the game after sporadically playing a lot of games. I've looked at some of the English tutorials that are available, but none of them explain what the actual principles are behind the game, just the basic rules or random tactics or specific castle formations.

In chess, the general principle is to control the center of the board. A move is good or bad depending on its effect on a player's positioning on the board. In shogi, I have no idea. I've got no clue what the difference is between a good and bad move. From the very first move, what am I trying to accomplish? And by that I don't mean "capture the king". I need something more general to latch onto.

1

Checkmating the king is normal thing here in shogi, which is basically the endgame and is most of time a mating race, similar to pawn promotion race in chess. Other than that you should build your own castle to put your king in safe place and there are different kind of them, working at different type of enemy attacks. So your job in middlegame is tryng to weaken the enemy king castle, try to break into his camp to promote your pieces and after that try to checkmate him. Obviously startegic scope depend from opening, which are divided on ranging rook and static rook, while tactics are kinda similar to chess althought there are some tactics you need to learn because of rule drop.
A golden rule is to use your rook to support your attack and to take away your king as far away from the rook because the battle will center around that piece. Some other good objective would be try promoting your pawn, your rook or the bishop which will boost your attacking power. Exchanging enemy gold for your minor pieces like silver or promote pawn are good idea too because it will weakned the castle as gold are quite good as defensive pieces unlike the silver who are kinda more offensive. Thats are only few basics idea.
In the end the game come to checkmate your opponent and draw are pretty rare unlike chess.

2

Try building all your pieces together and don’t leave an easy spot for your opponent to promote a piece.

1

During the beginning of the game, I can't decide whether to try building my defenses, advancing an attacking piece, or somehow responding to the opponent advancing pieces. It also feels like I'm wasting pieces when I don't do anything with them but keep them close to the king. Most castles recommend using two golds and one silver, leaving only silver left to attack. Making a castle can't be done all at once, so in any given move, I don't know if I should build the castle to be exactly like the model, or try to respond to what the other person is doing.

1

Usually is build a castle first and then start attack if you make the first move otherwise defend. There are different kind of castle, but the main one are the yagura, Mino and Anaguma. Obviously you should aim to build a mino castle because its pretty easy to make, only when you have more experience you should start build others too.
Well two gold and one silver are pretty common in making tha castle because Gold are really good as defensive measures, while not quite good on offensive level unlike the silver because of how they move. Silver is more balanced than gold and is more flexible so can be good both at defense or offense. In general two gold and one silver make a strong castle, while with fewer pieces the castle is weak and more easily exploitable.
As for what your enemy is doing you need to understand if he is tryng to build castle, so you should castle or is attacking and you should try to prepare some countermeasure first and then castle. Usually most of time attacks are done from the Rook column by pushing the pawn on 2 or 7 file, or by rapid attack which are the one who need an fast response.

1

So the theme of shogi is "destroy the opponent's defenses before they destroy yours"?

11

yeah kinda

"So the theme of shogi is "destroy the opponent's defenses before they destroy yours?""

I would say that while in chess you have: try to gain control of the center and material advantage, the game is simplified by captures and players begin to deliver a check-mate if possible, or go to a pawn promotion endgame, in Shogi you have the following overall pattern: build your defenses while you try to break opponent's lines (invade the three last rows), approach the king while you disarrange his defenses and react to the opponent's charge on your own defenses (the game accelerates), and finally deliver mate before your opponent is able to do so..

2

Here's a little one that differs from chess: don't advance your knights too early (because knights can't retreat and often need to to have their heads protected. "High jumps the knight that falls prey to a pawn."

In the classes of openings, it may be best to first learn/play the variations that don't have a bishop trade-off before playing the variations that do have potential early bishop trades. The idea being that it's harder to fortify the king's defenses if you have to simultaneously defend against a bishop drop.

Castle your king. It's generally better if you do it than if you don't.

Don't let your opponent promote a piece in the opening especially if that piece can move freely.

Don't let your opponent break through your camp.

Learn how to defend against a rook + silver attack. They are used in many, many openings.

In the middlegame, don't let your opponent promote an active rook or bishop without having some compensation via your own promotion, more material, etc.

21

endgame stuff

Keep a gold in hand for the last move.

Don't check unless you have a forced mating sequence or something clever.

Surround the king.

Push the king to the back rank.

Double threatmate are better than single threatmates.

If you are in a threatmate, play a defensive move to get rid of the threatmate unless you can start your own mating sequence.

If you are not in threatmate, create your own threatmate.

A simple brinkmate is more practical than a long mating sequence because you could make a calculation error.

11