Steamin' Niemann

It's been over two and a half months since I posted Chess Players Behaving Very, Very Badly (September 2022), aka the Niemann affair. In that time it's been the focus of two Yahoos posts ('mainstream news stories about chess'):-

• 2022-09-29: Cheating Mania
• 2022-10-27: Chess960 Mania • 'In last month's Cheating Mania, I observed, "Of the [78] Google News stories, 17 were about cheating." The cheating story continued bigtime in October. Of the 83 stories, 10 were about cheating.'

It's possible that the saga will figure in this month's Yahoos post, scheduled for next week, but there's a hitch : in October Niemann sued his tormentors and everyone has gone quiet. For the background to the lawsuit, here's a video.

Hans Niemann's $100 Million* Suit Against Magnus Carlsen ft. GothamChess (19:33) • '[Published on] Nov 15, 2022'

Instead of copying the description of the video, I looked up the the meaning of the abbreviation 'ft.' used in its title. In short, I haven't a clue. Google suggested Financial Times, fort, and foot/feet (a quaint unit of measure used in some developed countries), but I'm pretty sure it's none of those. GothamChess made an appearance in the video and received a shoutout in the description:-

Thanks for the assist from @GothamChess !

I'm sure the meaning of 'ft.' will come to me five minutes after publishing this post. In the meantime, here's a list of Youtube.com resources that discuss the lawsuit. (The Youtube channels are given in parentheses.)

• 2022-10-22: Niemann Sues Carlsen, Chess.com and Nakamura. Law Professor David Franklin joins to Assess the Case (Perpetual Chess Podcast w/ Ben Johnson) • 'With the bombshell news that GM Hans Niemann is suing Magnus Carlsen, Chess.com, and Hikaru Nakamura, we brought in a legal expert to help us make sense of the case. I am joined by Professor David Franklin. David is a Constitutional Law Professor and an appellate lawyer, who is also a chess enthusiast who had already been following the Carlsen/Niemann story closely.'
• 2022-10-31: $100 Million case: No defamation for Magnus Carlsen? A case analysis by a former trial attorney. (Legal Vignettes: Stories From the Life of a Lawyer) • 'How will the Missouri federal court look at some of the legal issues in the $100 million dollar filed by Hans Niemann against World Chess champion Magnus Carlsen, Chess.com, Daniel Rensch and popular chess Grandmaster Hikaru Nakamura? I've spent my life as a lawyer, a lot of it in federal court conducting trials. I took a look at some of the issues in this case, in particular, the issues involving defamation and jurisdiction. The law regarding defamation in Missouri is such that Niemann could have a pretty tough time with his case.'
• 2022-11-15: Hans Niemann's $100 Million* Suit Against Magnus Carlsen ft. GothamChess (LegalEagle) • 'Did he pull this out of his butt?'

The first video is a sober discussion of the merits of the lawsuit. The second is an in-the-weeds discussion of defamation, useful for anyone publishing content online (like me). The third is for completeness, i.e. the same video embedded above. The following screen shot is from the third video.

'Mate in 143 moves'

***

Later: Two more videos surfaced after I wrote this post, both from the second Youtube channel listed above: 'Legal Vignettes: Stories From the Life of a Lawyer'.

• 2022-10-25: The real reasons for Hans Niemann's lawsuit vs Magnus Carlsen. It isn't just about money. Niemann. • 'While it's often difficult to get into the mind of someone as to their motives for doing something, sometimes we can project outcomes that are likely and surmise motives.'
• 2022-12-03: Niemann Vs Carlsen - A Lawyer reviews the Docket - Deadlines set by the Court • 'This video is a review of the docket by Attorney Voyle Glover, a former federal civil rights litigator, in the case of Hans Niemann vs Magnus Carlsen and others. A docket is simply the Clerk's recorded history of the events/filings/orders made in the case.'

I wouldn't be surprised to learn that a majority of chess players have a keen interest in legal matters. Is there any way to verify this?