help please

Here's the opening.

I'm white.

1. e4 g6

2. b4 Bg7

3.Nc3 c6

4.Nf3 d5

5.h3 Bc8-e6? I looked at opening explorer and there wasn't an example of this move.

6. e5 f6

Advice on my next move? 

When you dn't kow what to do, push another pawn!

What do you think you should do and why?

I realize that this avoids your question, but it seems to me that 5...d4 6....d3 works for black.  Or 5...dxe4? What am I missing? 

In thechess board diagram, shuttlechess had the pawn move to g6 when it is the Bishop that moved there, which I pointed out was the questionable move.

e6, sorry.

I think I would bring my bishop to e2 planning to castle kingside.

I'm beginner/intermediate, btw.

My thoughts:

• 5.h3? is a blunder which can be met effectively by 5...dxe4.
• You're making too many pawn moves and too few developing moves.

Is this a game in progress?

Yeah, it's a  computer game with little chess partner.  I've yet to beat him set to easy.

I'll lose this game because I don't have an effective middlegame.  The question I would love to have answered is what was wrong with Black moving his Bishop to e6.  I was playing a mainline from opening explorer (including h3) and the Bishop move was not listed.

Perhaps, but you are also losing the opening. Where did you see this mainline in the opening explorer? I checked the chess.com game explorer and it doesn't show any games in the 1.e4 g6 2.b4?! line, and 5.h3? hangs a pawn. What's wrong with 5...Be6? is that it misses 5...dxe4, picking up your hanging pawn.

(You don't necessarily have to know openings to survive into the middlegame, but you do have to develop your pieces and avoid hanging material.)

In the final position Black has the advantage. Your e5 pawn is under attack so you have to do something about that. 7.d4 (a developing move that defends the attacked pawn) or 7.exf6 (trading off the attacked pawn) make sense.

I hope this helps. Good luck! :)

I find this entire post extremely unfair, and I am notifying Little Chess Partner immediately about the cheating!!

big error...e4, g6, then d4 not b4 for the mainline.  I apologize.

likesforests, thanks for your patience and taking the time to help!

I'm trying differnt ways to improve and there's really no one answer but I'm enjoying studying the book moves.