How to fight off this pin?

So basically I have a friend who always plays the Italian against me, then I respond with Giuoco Piano. Sometimes he gets this pin and I have no way to fight it off. Does anyone know how to stop the pin below? The problem is if I move my other pieces, my queen and knight are immobile for most of the game.

7...h6 results in 8.Bh4 g5 9.Bxg5 hxg5 10. Nxg5 and my king is vulnerable.

7...Qe8 or Qd7 result in 8.Bxf6 gxf6 and my king is vulnerable again.

That's what I usually play, but Bb3 and pin is still there.

I don't know any specifics.  I normally let the pin sit in place, or eventually play h6 to push the bishop off to the side.  I let my queen sit protecting the knight until I can advance her to d6, or the game opens so I can bring my dark bishop back to break the pin.  The way I see it, at move 7, I shouldn't even need my queen for about 5-6 more moves anyway.  Look at it as a liberation to put a lot into advancing the d-pawn, because after your opponent trades bishop for knight, you'll have the advantage of an open center for your bishops, making them stronger than your opponent's knights.

Or better- knight/bishop split, if you can make that happen.  Either way, when your opponent puts that pin in place, they're making a bet about how the game will progress.  So the best way I've found is to ignore the pin and change the premise of their bet.

OK, maybe a strategy against the pin is to open the game up, thanks!

well you could go h6 before he goes Bg5 or once he has i don't think h6 Bh4 g5 Bxg5 hxg5 Nxg5 is good for white because there are that many pieces around your king

@Jong That's a possibility, the problem is my bishop is a bit inactive early.

@thegreatauk 6.h6 Bxh6 and my king is vulnerable.

@thegreatauk Unless I castle queenside, which I wouldn't favour.

There's no problem with a queenside castle- it's a different game, but particularly if your opponent follows up with a kingside castle, you can get a more open game quickly, and your rook is very centralized to either support an advancing pawn on the d-file or take control of it as an open or semi-open file.

@tiredofjapan I guess that's true, it's just a bit slower.

Don't try to fight it. Accept it for what it is.

It's better to be castled well than castled fast, whichever direction you go.  The reason that pin is so difficult is specifically because you're castled behind the pawn that would allow your queen to move away if you weren't right behind it.  If your queen hadn't been there to pin in the first place, or if you weren't castled because you were waiting for the queenside castle, you would welcome the bishop exchanging for your knight, taking back with the pawn.  I've started delaying castling as long as I comfortably can, because it's nice to have the option to choose after I get a sense for where my opponent is aiming their attack.

Castling on move 6 is fine, but if you don't like the pin then changing the move order with 6...h6 and then 7...0-0 solves it directly.

Because Bg5 isn't as annoying when you haven't 0-0 yet (h6+g5 has no risk without ...0-0) you can also play moves like:

6...Bg4
6...Na5
6...a6
6...Be6
6...Nd4
6...Ne7

@tiredofjapan That's a good point. Castling queenside seems like the best option. But still if the queen moves away, bishop takes the knight and I isolate a pawn. But after castling queenside h6 is very playable, followed by g5 if White plays Bh5.

@foofooes Kh8 is probably more dangerous, my king is on the very corner and is susceptible to being cut off eventually.

@thechessdreamer Bb3 keeps the pin there. I can understand Bxe6 fxe6 and then 0-0 because of rook defence, but Bb3 is solid for White.

@macer75 Right...

This solves your problem.