Switching gears in the thread, there are likely several dozen players, even probably including a few snooker players in my opinion, who could break Mosconi's old record of 526 within say six months if they were sufficiently motivated. While it is still a hell of a feat, John was just the first one that was sufficiently motivated to do it. Breaking John's new record of 626 is of course going to be harder, but most of the same guys would still be capable. The key is just the willingness to put in the hours that would be needed to really learn all the best patterns and break shots (particularly for those that weren't already top straight pool players but it would come reasonably quickly for most) and the hours needed to end up hitting a long streak of good luck (or a long streak without bad luck, however you want to look at it).