Hello.
Michael Ayton wrote on 06/01/17 at 23:56:23:
I haven't looked at this closely, but I was a bit worried about the immediate 8 e5. I thought Black's best might be 7 ...b5 as in Chernetskiy-Tkachiev. There, White replied 9 a3 (fishy, surely!) and after 8 ...Bb7 9 d5? c6 soon collapsed and came second. I imagined that best might be something like 8 Bd3 Bb7 9 e5 Nd5 10 Nd5 (10 e6 f5) Bd5 11 Qe3 Nc6!?. Maybe OK for Black? -- I'm not sure.
1.e4 d6 2.d4 Nf6 3.Nc3 g6 4.Bg5 Bg7 5.Qd2 h6 6.Bf4 a6
7.Be2 Nc6 Looks about right indeed. One can argue white will probably not be so inclined to play Bf3 now making Be2 presumably not the most meaningfully placed piece on the board.
7.Nf3 b5 8.Bd3 Nc6 Should also be a bit interesting. Perhaps white can find some more or less advantageous way to continue, though with the knight on c6 black has many ideas of how to continue play (Bg4, Bb7, e6, e5, b4, Nd7, g5) and this is usually a good sign.
After
8...Bb7 9.e5 Nd5 10.Nxd5 Bxd5 11.Qe3 Nc6 I suspect white is well placed to keep his center intact for some time, but ok maybe black can live with this.
7.Nf3 e6 8.e5 is definitely an idea and can maybe be compared to the 6...e6 7.e5 classical Pirc. Still I don't think you should be displeased as black after
8...dxe5 9.Nxe5 Nh5 10.Be3 Nd7. I'm not really thinking white is better and if he is it will be hard for him to make immediate impact against a fundamentally quite sound black position. A definite plus with 7...e6 is also that 8.Bd3 Nc6 seems quite alright for black.
There is also
7.Nf3 Nc6 which could be tried.
Have a nice day.