Jan Werle (born 15 January 1984) is a Dutch chess grandmaster. Junior success Werle began learning chess at the age of five, after watching his father play with a friend. He progressed rapidly and achieved much success as he progressed through the various age groups of both national and regional championships. He won medals at the European Youth Chess Championships at Kallithea in 2000 and 2001, where he took the bronze in the Under-16 age category and the silver in the Under-18 category, respectively. Further chess activity Werle continued to develop quickly over the next few years, by combining a structured coaching regime with frequent tournament practice. He became an International Master in 2001 and a grandmaster in 2006. Asked about his chess style, he comments that he regards himself primarily as a positional player, but one that can cope well with tactical complications. His fighting spirit has also been a strength, but his opening play was for many years a weakness. Recently, he has worked with Dutch number one Ivan Sokolov to improve the opening phase of his game and with club-mate Sergei Tiviakov, has analyzed some of the games of the old masters, such as Botvinnik, Smyslov and Petrosian. He laments the passing of a time when such creative geniuses could fashion themselves an original playing style; regrettably, the advent of the computer era has, above all else, placed a strong focus on precise analysis. His tournament record is so far impressive; runner-up at Groningen 2005 and at the Corus 'C' Group (Wijk aan Zee) 2006, winner of the Essent Open 2006 and winner at Lodi in 2007. At Liverpool in 2008, he made only a last-minute decision to enter the EU Individual Open Chess Championship and surprised everyone by winning the event, ahead of many of Europe's leading players, including Michael Adams, Nigel Short, Étienne Bacrot and Maxime Vachier-Lagrave. Team events In the German Bundesliga, he was playing for many years for SG Aljechin Solingen, alongside compatriots Daniel Stellwagen, Jan Smeets and Sipke Ernst. In 2015/2016, he joined the Bundesliga team of Werder Bremen. He also plays league chess in the Netherlands and speaks highly of his experiences in England, where he has represented the Bristol team in the 4NCL. Although he is yet to play for the national team in formal competition, he has been a regular participant of the Howard Staunton Memorial Tournament in London