I see you user name is mikemosconi -- are you a relative?? You say you give John his due, but you sure seem to have to add a lot of comments that are not so consistent with giving the man his due respect for blowing by a record that has stood for 60 something years.
First of all, John Schmidt is far from the only talented player to focus on running as many balls as they could at straight pool for days at a time. In fact Mike Eufemia was a great straight pool player (not so great in competition), who did exactly that for quite a few years. He claimed to have run over 600 balls once in practice, but it was not fully witnessed, nor was it recorded so it could be checked, so it has understandably not been accepted as a record. Back when straight pool was more popular it seemed like there were plenty of players that obsessed with practice runs. I can think of one locally in fact who might be still at it -- Dick Leternou (sp?) from the Haverhill MA area. I believe even "getting lucky" once in a while his high run is only somewhere in the 200's or so I believe.
If it is so easy to run 626 by trying repeatedly (lol) then I would guess we would see other players try it now -- especially seeing the publicity this is getting for John Schmidt. That would be great for straight pool, but put me in the camp that thinks players won't be able to match that as easily as you seem to think. Although if I was betting, I don't think I would bet against about 2-3 of the top Euro players because they might just do it
I notice below someone mentioned how much luck was involved. Of course there is good luck and bad luck, but high runs are hardly the result of luck lol.If you look at John's tally of daily high runs, you can see he has been consistent with high runs on a daily basis. That is not luck, that is a consistent high level skill. From what I watched with John, I occasionally saw (say every 200 balls or so) a roll I might consider lucky or unlucky. Now if you or I or any of us mere mortals tried to run hundreds, we would NEVER get near 200 with the best or worst of luck. In otherwords John was playing so good in what I saw that he was really minimizing the luck factor. I think he himself commented that the 626 run was pretty "clean" -- meaning to me that there was not much luck involved -- except the good fortune of avoiding an unlucky bad roll now and then lol
I really look forward to the video being available, and yes I plan to buy it