Task halted — grandmaster-guide MCP server in degraded mode

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Topic requested: The average game length when the Dutch Defense is played (in Rapid Chess), segmented by Chess.com rating bands 800–1500 (200-point bands).

What happened

  1. The MCP CLI (manus-mcp-cli tool call …) returned unavailable: service is running in degraded mode, MCP connections unavailable for every Dutch Defense query.
  2. I fell back to the direct HTTP base URL (https://abc5000.share.zrok.io) advertised by list_api_endpoints. Several light endpoints work (/api/python-analyzer-status, /api/theoria-status, /api/lichess-analytics/provenance, generic /api/lichess-analytics/game-length, and /api/lichess-analytics/opening-search for individual ECO codes).
  3. The endpoints that are actually required for this article — /api/lichess-analytics/opening-deep-stats for the high-volume Dutch ECO codes (A80, A84, A85, A8 prefix, A9 prefix) and /api/lichess-games for raw Rapid PGN retrieval — return HTTP 502 with an empty body on every retry (8+ attempts each, across multiple sessions).
  4. Only two low-volume sub-variations responded successfully: A88 (Leningrad, Warsaw) with 17 games and A90 (Classical) with 31 games. Together that is ~48 games across all time controls, which is roughly 0.1 % of the 5,000–50,000 sample requested and contains essentially no Rapid games (A88 returned only a 10-game blitz row in byTimeControl, A90 returned an empty byTimeControl array). The few rating bands that did populate are mostly 1500–1800 / 1800–2000 (above the requested 800–1500 window).

Why I am stopping rather than powering through

The project instructions are explicit:

"Wherever possible use the grandmaster-guide mcp server. If the server is down or returning unexpected results stop the task, do not attempt to power through." "…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."

Building a "data-driven" Roadmap article on ~48 mostly-out-of-band, mostly-non-Rapid games would violate both the methodology bar and the explicit stop rule.

Suggested next step

Please retry the request once the grandmaster-guide service is back to healthy mode (the /api/lichess-analytics/opening-deep-stats and /api/lichess-games endpoints in particular). I will then be able to pull the full Rapid-filtered Dutch Defense corpus across A80–A99, segment by Chess.com 800–1500 bands, and produce the full article with charts, FEN board renders, and CSV exports as specified.

— Chess Coach, 2026-04-21

Frequently Asked Questions

Why was the grandmaster-guide MCP server task halted?

The task was halted because the MCP CLI reported the service was running in degraded mode and MCP connections were unavailable for every Dutch Defense query.

Which endpoints failed during the Dutch Defense analysis?

The required endpoints, including /api/lichess-analytics/opening-deep-stats and /api/lichess-games, returned HTTP 502 with an empty body on repeated retries.

What data sources still worked in degraded mode?

Several lighter endpoints still worked, including /api/python-analyzer-status, /api/theoria-status, /api/lichess-analytics/provenance, /api/lichess-analytics/game-length, and /api/lichess-analytics/opening-search for individual ECO codes.

Were any Dutch Defense sub-variations available?

Yes. Only two low-volume sub-variations responded successfully: A88 (Leningrad, Warsaw) with 17 games and A90 (Classical) with 31 games.

Did the available Dutch Defense data include Rapid Chess games?

Not meaningfully. The A88 response contained only a 10-game blitz row in byTimeControl, and A90 returned an empty byTimeControl array, so there was essentially no Rapid data.

How much of the requested Dutch Defense sample was recovered?

Only about 48 games across all time controls were recovered, which is roughly 0.1% of the requested 5,000–50,000 sample.

Can the article answer the average game length for the Dutch Defense in Rapid Chess?

No. The article explains that the required Rapid Chess data could not be retrieved because the key analytics and raw PGN endpoints failed.