Thursday, October 1, 2026
Long Beach resident Joe Miccio spent much of his career running into burning buildings to save people. Now, he teaches children how to play chess.
Miccio, a 57-year-old retired New York City firefighter and former police officer, invented an instructional board game in 1991 called QuickChess that teaches children how to play chess.
Miccio’s game makes it easier for children and adults to learn how to play the game in just 10 minutes, and each opponent starts with five pawns set up on a smaller 30-square board. The two players engage in a mini-game called Power Pawns to teach them how to properly use the pawn piece, followed by using the king, queen, rook, bishop and knight.
Although he’s not a chess expert, Miccio said he enjoys teaching kids.
“Chess is a great game for nurturing the genius in young children,” Miccio said, “but learning chess can be intimidating and too long to hold their attention.”
QuickChess has been featured in Scholastic book fairs at schools and has sold over a quarter million copies. Now, Miccio is working to release an app version of the game in September 2017.
He launched a Kickstarter campaign to promote the digital version of the game, which runs until December 20, and hopes to raise $55,000 to help launch the updated version.
The app operates like a traditional video game — one player mode allows for users to play against other users or computers.
“It will pair them with players of their skill level,” Miccio said.
Just in time for the 2016 World Chess Championship that was held in New York City on Nov. 30, Miccio teamed up with four-time Women’s World Champion Susan Polgar, the first woman to win the grandmaster title, to promote the new digital take on QuickChess. Polgar became involved when she and her father approached Miccio’s QuickChess table at a U.S. Chess Federation event at Central Park.
“She is working with us to develop and enhance more teaching challenges building off the existing game,” Miccio said.
Players have the chance to win a Sykpe chat with Polgar based on the amount of money they pledge to the Kickstarter campaign. Other prizes include digital wallpapers, a coloring book, special chess sets and even firefighter avatars.
Miccio has contracted with Redox, an independent game studio that will be developing the app in the coming months, he said.
In the meantime, the traditional 64-square chess game remains an option, and Miccio visited fourth graders at West Elementary School on Dec. 12 to teach students how to play chess using his board game.
“Seeing the kids pick up a chess piece and at the same time engaging their minds in a game like chess — it’s a eureka moment,” Miccio said. “That’s the important thing — having fun grasping something that’s good for them.”
Miccio said that he plans to visit more schools in Long Beach, and often draws from his experience as a firefighter when it comes to teaching kids.
“We have five firefighters on each fire truck who must work together to survive, so using five pawns on the QuickChess board was a perfect analogy,” he said. “Like firefighters, pawns work best together!”
