upandcomer (1575) 2016-08-07 21:16

Hello, nice to meet you all! While I'm not new to 81dojo, having played 170 games, I am new to these forums. 

I began playing shogi around the end of February this year. I was reading up on Japan and learned there weren't many western chess players in Japan, instead they had their own form of chess called shogi. I was further intrigued when I learned the great shogi player Habu had learned chess and gone on to become a strong FIDE master. Although originally the only board game I played was western chess, I thought if Habu could learn chess I could put forth some effort and learn shogi. I've found it to be quite interesting, and it's felt nice to play a board game as a beginner again. 

I learned for the first 2-3 months mainly using Hidetchi's great videos on shogi, as well as some very informative links to opening resources, games, and shogi streaming sites from 81dojo user Maplesugarlover. The last couple of months I've only had time to do 8-10 tsume problems a day on cellphone app called "shogi paradise" that has a collection of over 5000 tsume problems. Hopefully one day I will get to that 5000 mark!