In a series of three hands, Ray Ross of the Team Kitten poker crew went from an average stack to the brink of elimination, and back again.

First, Ross three-bet shoved with his , only to run into the held by Dimitrious Goranitis. No fives arrived on board, and Ross shipped the majority of his chips across the table.

Left with just 200,000 or so, Ross' only move at that point was to get it in with whatever two cards he could find, and the seemed like a decent chance to have live cards. When he was called in two spots by Vladimir Peck - who held - and Abdul Amer - who tabled the , it turned out he was actually drawing pretty thin.

The flop came to complicate matters immensely, as the three players had all swapped outs, and even Ross' buddies from Team Kitten were left cheering for the wrong cards to come. No matter though, as the on the turn put Ross out in front with a pair. As chants of "King, king!" filled the room, Ross turned to his boisterous rail and quieted them immediately, obviously aware that a king would kill his hand and send the pot to Amer. The river fell , however, and Ross earned a desperately needed triple up.

In one of the very next hands, Ross got it all in once again, open-shoving under the gun with . Still holding a comfortable chip lead, Amer tried once more to take Ross out of the tournament, but the dealer delivered for Ross a third time, coming to move him back over the 1.6 million mark mere minutes after holding just a few big blinds to his name.

Tags: Abdul AmerDimitrious GoranitisRay Ross