1st post! Ill do that whole introduction sometime soon thing but in the meantime…

8 left in a Stars 45 man. 7 pay. We are in the big blind and its folded to the small blind who is an aggressive reg and he shoves. We are confident in our read that he is shoving close to 100% here but even if its just as interesting. We both have kind of an average stack. Lets say we are 4th and 5th with about 7 or 8 bbs each. Its a common situation. Given the payout structure my gut tells me to play for the top 3 in these things but the maths is interesting.

From a cEV perspective we should call here at least 40% of the time. Sometimes more depending on exact stack sizes.

Depending on the other stack sizes and blind level though, from an ICM perspective we should often be calling with only Aces and Kings.

I know its a never ending debate and that the answer is no doubt somewhere in the middle. But what factors are influencing our decisions and in what way? Like I say its a pretty common spot and whatever is influencing this decision is influencing a lot of decisions when you get down to 9, 10, 11 players in these things so I would definitely like to see some discussion on just how wide we should be “hero calling” in 45 mans?

(How different is it in 180s?)