The chess habits to unlearn

Try it on the board

Stop trading to simplify

The strongest habit chess gives you is the worst one here: when ahead, exchange pieces. In shogi every exchange puts a piece in your opponent's hand, ready to appear anywhere on the board next turn - most likely next to your king. Being "a piece up" is not a lead you can convert by trading down, because there is no down.

Judge material by what a piece is doing and by what it would do in your opponent's hand. Handing over a gold to win a lance is usually a bad trade even though you are, on paper, ahead.

Castling is now four moves, and you still have to do it

The order nearly every player follows: open the bishop's diagonal, decide which side the rook will play on, walk the king towards the opposite corner, and pack two or three generals around it. That structure is the castle (囲い kakoi), and it has a name - Mino, Yagura, Anaguma - the way your openings do.

Attacking with the king still in the centre is the mistake that decides most beginners' games, exactly as in chess, but it is punished harder: the counterattack arrives with pieces that were in your opponent's hand rather than pieces that have to walk over.

Pick one castle, one opening, and repeat

The Mino is the usual castle behind a swinging rook, the Yagura behind a static one. Choose one pair and play a dozen games without changing anything: repetition is what makes the patterns surface - where the structure is strong, where it cracks, what people try against it.

The board above starts from the initial position, takes moves for both sides, and enforces every rule in this course - promotion, drops, nifu and uchifuzume included. Use it to try an idea before you take it into a real game.