In one company in Makati, after office hours, there was a group of men gathering together. Not to talk about work, not to work, but to compete in the most prestigious event in the field of sports — the 2004 Cool Pool Competition. Cool Pool (or 3-D Ultra Cool Pool) is a pool computer game.
My recollection is a bit blurry now, so I’m not sure if the following details are still accurate:
There were 16 of us who competed (possibly fewer). Most were from my department. But there were also participants from other departments.
The registration fee was ₱10 (or ₱20).
The prize was ₱60 (?) for the runner-up. ₱100 (?) for the champion (and of course, bragging rights).
Nine Ball. We used a traditional bracket system (like the NBA playoffs). Each game was Best-of-3 (?) except for the Championship which was Best-of-5 (?).
There was a controversial Jump Shot 1 that I made during the championship.
There is only one thing I am sure of. 100% sure. I was the champion 🏆😎
What’s funny is that I’m actually bad at playing real billiards 😁 But that didn’t stop me from putting in my e-mail signature before that I was the “2004 Cool Pool Champion.” 😎
Anyway, when I recently set up my PC again, I thought of searching if there was still an available pirated copy of this game, and to my surprise, Cool Pool is now free to download on My Abandonware.
How to Download:
This is just based on what I did. I downloaded the Full-Rip (121 MB) and the Patch here.
For the Full-Rip, you just need to extract the ZIP file, and you can play it immediately. Just click on CoolPool.exe.
For the patch, it’s the same. Just extract the ZIP file then click cp101us.exe. It will just ask for the location of your CoolPool.exe. The updates are listed in the readme.txt. Actually, I already played it even without installing the patch.
I haven’t tried the Online option yet. I only play 1-Player (versus computer). And I still win… sometimes.
