Chad Chavez Only Needs a Chip and a Chair

After sitting on his extremely short stack for much of Day 2's latter stages, climbing the payout ladder slowly but steadily while his fellow players went broke, Chad Chavez returned on Day 3 with only 90,000 chips, good for just 7.5 big blinds.

With another pay jump of over $6,000 looming if he can fade two more eliminations, Chavez just increased his odds with a double through Barry Greenstein.

First to act under the gun, Chavez shipped his last 68,000 with , and the grizzled tournament veteran called him down with . Although he was in the lead, Chavez would need to dodge paint cards to avoid an early exit.

Flop:

The first three cards hit Chavez square in the face, and with trip eights he was poised to double through one of poker's all-time greats. The on the turn sealed the deal, and the on the river seemed to fall only as an ode to Greenstein's famous tome of poker knowledge.