If you wrap the LIMIT select into a subquery in the FROM the planner might figure it out... SELECT ... FROM (SELECT blah FROM a LIMIT 10) LEFT JOIN ... Unlike some other databases that will spend huge amounts of time on trying to re-arrange queries and then hope they can effectively cache query plans, PostgreSQL prefers not to spend cycles on more esoteric cases so that query planning is fast. -- Jim C. Nasby, Sr. Engineering Consultant jnasby@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Pervasive Software http://pervasive.com work: 512-231-6117 vcard: http://jim.nasby.net/pervasive.vcf cell: 512-569-9461