What good are your major pieces if you aren't using them?

This is something that seems to come up when I talk to low kyu players.  "You should have taken this piece!" "Yes, but I didn't want to give up my rook!"  It's definitely a sensical thought, that if you can hang onto your material, you should.  But, this is shogi, and valuing your pieces too much could leave you in too slow of a position to win.  There's a reason "speed is more valuable than material" is a proverb.

In this game between two amateurs, one might be tempted to simply play Bx32+.  You get a gold general, and your horse is safe, so there's some merit to it.  But with your rook sente's rook under attack on 48, it's too slow - sente can't take any time to slowly build up their forces.  Play continued ☗Bx52+ ☖Gx ☗R-45.

By giving up the bishop, sente took away one of the defending generals from gote's castle and set up for an attack, while preventing gote from getting a really solid foothold in their own camp.  Furthermore, that gold on 32 isn't really doing anything, so there's not much need to take it.

We can look to the first game of the 61st Oui Title Match between Souta Fujii and Kazuki Kimura for a similar example.

Fujii ☗Px74, taking a pawn and threatening the knight.  Kimura dropped his bishop to 92, pinning the pawn to sente's rook, saying, "Hey, if you take my knight, I'll get your bishop."  Fujii wasn't fazed.  ☗Px73+ ☖Bx29 ☗+Px62 ☖K-43 ☗P'44 ☖Kx ☗+P-52 ☖+B-39 ☗S'53.

☖K-33 ☗N'44 ☖G-22 ☗G'32 ☖Gx ☗Nx+ ☖Kx ☗+P-42

Not even concerned with saving the gold on 48, Fujii determined that he was safe from a counter attack, and just kept going, pressing on with his attack and eventually winning the game after seemingly giving up his rook for free.