Difficulties of playing correct against friends/family

Do you guys feel you play better or worse against really close friends. I play constantly with a good friend of mine... and last night we got into a grudge match for $1,000.00 . It was absurd, and both of us felt the other wasn't playing their best game. It was more like two brothers racing up a tree regardless of the possibility of one of us falling and breaking a leg.

Now that the match is over, neither of us feel right about taking $1,000 from eachother or playing at this level again to try to get even. However, we both feel that a bet is a bet.

How would you proceed?

BTW The monetary value means nothing in this case... this could have been a match for $20 or $10,000.. the feelings are the same.

[nmt09]

I can't play against my girlfriend, I always think she's bluffing.

If you won why not take your mate out, buy some expensive sports tickets and have a good time. The bet stands but you get to feel better.

I agree with you. My best friend is the typical calling station, which frustrates the hell out of me because he will call to the river with a gut-shot and hit it. It does no good to make him pay for a draw, he'll gladly do it. Since he's, as Helmuth puts it, an "elephant", I've adopted a strategy where I bet my normal 3X BB pre-flop, then I wait until fourth street to make him pay for the draw, he'll usually fold then. If he has something he likes, he'll bet the flop. Since I've adopted this strategy of not betting on the flop, I seem to crush him repeatedly. Whenever we are in a tournament that is not our home game, he never lasts long enough to make a difference. The rest of the players in my home game are pretty much losse (and quite bad) players, although, many of them work together and on some days they will play extremely tight so as not to hear about how bad they are the rest of the week at work. My mother, on the other hand, always knows when I'm weak and has taken to calling me down a lot with Ace high. I find it easier to size-up strangers quickly and exploit the weak ones since I don't have the preconceived idea of how they play and find out later that they've changed the way they play tonight to prevent being ridiculed at work, which is usually after a few lost pots.
As for taking money off of the friends. If they didn't want to give me their money, they shouldn't have sat down at the table with me. I do it for money. If they don't want to give it up, I'll go to a casino and takes someone else's roll.

I actually lost... at first he didn't want to take the money at all... but I insisted on some type of compromise. Now we are in a grey area...

We talked about reducing it to a $200 match and play 4 more $200 matches so that I can "get even" or "pull ahead" without playing multiple more matches for $1,000.00

i agree with nathan james, take the 1000 he won fair and square, and go go buy courtside tickets and dinner at a nice restaurant(or something of that value), so even thuogh he won you guys still can have a great time together, and and its not a total loss for you, and your freindship is still in great shape.