The grandmaster-guide MCP server has gone into a persistent 502 Bad Gateway state (zrok tunnel down) since shortly after I began collection. I retried for ~10 minutes with both the MCP transport and the direct HTTP backend; both consistently return 502.
Per the project rules ("If the server is down or returning unexpected results stop the task, do not attempt to power through" and "at any time if any of the tools in the grandmaster-guide mcp goes down, error out don't attempt to finish analysis without it"), I have to stop here rather than fall back to a non-MCP source or to the partial data I had already pulled.
What I had already retrieved and saved before the outage (just for transparency, not a substitute for the full analysis):
Per-rating-band win/draw/loss for ECO C47 across 700–1800
A blitz top-50 opening winrates dump (299 rows including 6 Four Knights rows)
If you'd like me to resume once the MCP comes back online, just send any message in this thread and I will pick up from where I left off.
— Chess Coach 2026-04-21
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Four Knights Game in chess?
The Four Knights Game is an opening that arises after both sides develop their knights early. In this article, it is examined specifically in blitz chess.
Is the Four Knights Game a good opening for beginners?
The article frames it as a possible safe choice for beginners because it is a developed, principled opening. It does not claim a final verdict, since the analysis was interrupted.
Does the Four Knights Game often lead to draws?
That is one of the article’s main research questions. The available data includes draw rates for ECO C47, but the full analysis could not be completed before the server outage.
What chess data was collected for the Four Knights research?
The saved data includes provenance from 954,617 games, 100% Stockfish-eval coverage, 465,320 blitz games, and opening search results showing ECO C47 as the dominant Four Knights code.
Which ECO code is most associated with the Four Knights Game in the article?
ECO C47 is the dominant code in the saved opening search results for Four Knights, with 13,464 games.
What rating ranges were analyzed for the Four Knights Game?
The article says per-rating-band win, draw, and loss data was collected for ECO C47 across the 700–1800 rating range.
Why did the analysis stop early?
The grandmaster-guide MCP server returned persistent 502 Bad Gateway errors, so the article stops rather than continuing with incomplete or fallback data.