Ján Šefc

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Ján Šefc (10 December 1924 – 17 May 2014) was a Slovak chess player. He won the Czechoslovak Chess Championship in 1955 and earned a team medal at the European Team Chess Championship in 1957. He grew up in Košice but, after Košice was occupied by Hungary in 1938, his family moved to Prešov. In 1949, after his father's death, he moved to Bratislava, where he worked and studied medicine. In 1953 he became a professional chess trainer. He regularly competed in the Czechoslovak Championship, winning bronze in 1954 and the title in 1955 (Prague). In 1956 he finished 6th at the Wilhelm Steinitz Memorial in Mariánské Lázně. He represented Czechoslovakia in the Chess Olympiads and in the European Team Chess Championship. His students included grandmasters Ľubomír Ftáčnik and Igor Štohl, and international master Róbert Tibenský. He was a member of the Slovan Bratislava chess club.