# Aaron Alexandre

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{{Short description|German–French–English chess player and writer (1765/68–1850)}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}
thumb|right|230 px|Aaron Alexandre portrayed by Alexandre Laemlein (1844)
'''Aaron (Albert) Alexandre''' ({{langx|he|אהרון אלכסנדר}}, around 1765/68 in [Hohenfeld](/source/Hohenfeld), [Franconia](/source/Franconia) – 16 November 1850 in [London](/source/London), England) was a [German](/source/Germans)–[French](/source/French_people)–[English](/source/English_people) [chess](/source/chess) player and writer.

Aaron Alexandre, a Bavarian trained as a [rabbi](/source/rabbi), arrived in [France](/source/France) in 1793.<ref name=Saint-Amant>Saint-Amant [Pierre-Charles Fournier de], ''Nécrologie: A. Alexandre'', La Régence, 1st ser., 3, no. 1 (January 1851): 3–13.</ref> Encouraged by the [French Republic](/source/French_First_Republic)'s policy of religious toleration, he became a French citizen. At first, he worked as a German teacher and as a mechanical [inventor](/source/inventor). Eventually, chess became his primary occupation. He tried to make a complete survey of the [chess opening](/source/chess_opening)s, publishing his findings as the ''Encyclopédie des échecs'' (''Encyclopedia of Chess'', Paris, 1837). In this book, he used the algebraic notation and the castling symbols 0–0 and 0–0–0.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20020802121138/http://www.ktn.freeuk.com/cb.htm Knight's Tour Notes, Part Cb: Chronology 1800 – 1899<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>[http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=ft438nb2b6&doc.view=content&chunk.id=ch1&toc.depth=1&anchor.id=0&brand=eschol Crescendo of the Virtuoso "ch1"<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> In 1838, he won a match against [Howard Staunton](/source/Howard_Staunton) in London, though before Staunton became a master.<ref>David Hooper, Ken Whyld, The Oxford companion to chess (1984) page 326, and second edition p390.</ref> Alexandre was one of the operators of the fake chess-playing machine known as [the Turk](/source/Mechanical_Turk).<ref>Tom Standage, ''The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine'' (New York: Walker, 2002), 206.</ref>

==See also==
* [List of Jewish chess players](/source/List_of_Jewish_chess_players)

==References==
<references/>

{{wikisource|works=or}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alexandre, Aaron}}
Category:1766 births
Category:1850 deaths
Category:People from Kitzingen
Category:18th-century German Jews
Category:Jewish chess players
Category:German chess players
Category:19th-century German chess players
Category:French chess players
Category:British chess players
Category:19th-century British chess players
Category:German chess writers
Category:French chess writers
Category:British chess writers
Category:18th-century French Jews
Category:18th-century French writers
Category:German emigrants to the United Kingdom
Category:German emigrants to France
Category:German male non-fiction writers
Category:French male non-fiction writers
Category:Naturalized citizens of France
Category:Mechanical Turk operators
Category:18th-century French male writers

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Aaron Alexandre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Alexandre) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aaron_Alexandre?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.