It’s time for Day 2 at the EPT Paris 2026 Main Event, so it’s time for the chips to start heating up, but also time for live streaming. Right at the event’s first televised table, the Italian Felice Bucci ran into a mishap, an error in judgment that cost him the tournament. Let’s see how it went.
Bucci vs Schneiders: the controversial hand that cost Felice EPT Paris and made Felix soar
We are in the first level of Day 2, 1,000/1,500/1,500, and the televised table features Felice Bucci among the protagonists. He is perhaps a new face for live play, but not online, as Felice is a regular on the PokerStars Network with the nickname “4betforinfo“. Anyway, the spot that has caused and is causing much discussion comes when Faria opens from UTG+1 to 3,000 with q 9 . One seat further along sits Felice Bucci who peels a k and decides to just flat, with Oberoi imitating him from the Hi-Jack with k q . Action reaches Felix Schneiders in the Big Blind and the German wakes up with k k . The German, a very popular streamer in his home country, decides to make a squeeze to 18,000. The action returns to Bucci, who again chooses a fairly conservative line, just calling, probably also because the stacks were both deep and almost identical. Before the hand, in fact, Bucci had 145,500 and Schneiders 142.500.
Anyway, the flop is dealt 10 10 6 and Felice Bucci checks. Schneiders thinks about it and, in the end, chooses a rather large size: a continuation bet of 30,000 into a 44,500 pot. Bucci doesn’t think long before deciding to call, and the pot becomes interesting: 104,500, which exceeds both their stacks, as Schneiders now has 94,500 in front of him and Felice has 97,500.
On the turn j Felice checks again, but Felix makes the final decision: all-in.
This move clearly puts Felice in difficulty, and he thinks for several minutes before opting for a call that leaves the audience and the Italian commentators, Giada Fang and Pierpaolo Fabretti, quite stunned.
The river doesn’t help 10 and this produces two opposite effects for the two “Felices”: Schneiders soars to 293,500, or almost 200 big blinds, while Bucci is left with just 2.
First the illusion, then the disappointment: Felice “4betforinfo” Bucci exits EPT Paris
Felice puts them all in the following hand with AQ, finding two customers in Oberoi and Schneiders, but the former isolates on the flop 7 q **q*2 making Felix fold. Turn and river don’t help the Swede and Bucci makes a substantial quadruple up, climbing back to 12,000. His fate is still almost sealed, and indeed it comes a few hands later. After Teisseire’s opening to 3,000 and calls from Schneiders and Faria, Bucci goes all-in for 10,500 total (he had put in 1,500 as BB ante) with q 4 .
Here Bucci is also unlucky, because Schneiders decides to isolate with him by 4-betting to 21,000, making Faria fold, who had a 10. The German instead has k j and dominates the Italian even in suits. However, the board 5 2 6 7 8 makes him sensationaly return to the race, with 28,500 chips which are almost 20 bigs.
But Schneiders is always in Bucci’s destiny, when the German opens from middle position with k j and Bucci calls with a 10. A third player also enters but will fold on the flop 6 10 k , after Schneiders’ c-bet to 3,000 called by Bucci. On the turn 6 the German puts him all-in and for Felice there is another difficult decision to make.
Bucci calls, the river is a 5 and he must leave the tournament.
Felice Bucci explains the reasons for the call: “I overthought it”
Felice Bucci himself shortly after intervened in the chat of the PokerStarsNews YouTube channel, which broadcasts the EPT live stream, where he explained his thoughts. Essentially, Felice admitted to having gone into overthinking, thus making a wrong read. “His flop size triggered me”, Bucci said, but the subsequent street also sowed doubts in Felice’s head. “Hard to shove overpot”, he writes, slightly mistakenly because Schneiders’ all-in was less than the pot, albeit by a little. The motivation for this doubt doesn’t change, however, from “close to pot” to “overpot”, because Felice says “here I can easily have JJ and some T’s in my value range”.
Therefore, the possibility that the opponent is bluffing grows out of proportion in the Italian player’s head, who indeed makes a wrong assessment. “Clearly, in hindsight I wouldn’t have called,” he says.
What is Overthinking in poker
This hand, even though it effectively cost Felice Bucci the tournament, allows us to explain the concept of overthinking in poker well. As you know, poker is also a mental game, of intersecting strategies. In fact, we talk about “multiple level thinking”, because there is a real stratification of thought levels, where the base is level 0, which coincides with the mere knowledge of the rules of the game, and the maximum is actually elusive, because in clashes between champions one can reach very high levels.
In theory, level 0 is just knowledge of the game, level 1 of thinking is equivalent to “what do I have in my hand”, level 2 is “what does my opponent have in their hand”, level 3 is “what does the opponent think I have”, level 4 is “what do I think they think I have”, and so on.
The most important thing in poker, however, is not to reach sublime levels of thought, but to stay one level ahead of our opponent, so as to be able to read them or predict their moves. If, on the other hand, one reasons at levels that are too high compared to the opponent’s real level, this can have disastrous effects because one believes them capable of moves they don’t even know. This, exactly this, is overthinking.
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Cover image: screen from PokerStarsNews YouTube channel
