I was wondering why it seems that the query planner can't "see", based on the histograms, that two join-columns have a very small intersection, and adjust its row estimation accordingly. Clearly the below query returns 1001 rows. It appears as if much or all of the necessary machinery exists in mergejoinscansel, and indeed if you inspect leftstartsel, leftendsel, rightstartsel, rightendsel during execution they are respectively 0.98, 1.00, 0.00, 0.020, which I believe makes sense. Am I missing something obvious? Thanks Sam create table table_a as select * from generate_series(1,61000) as pkey; create table table_b as select * from generate_series(60000,110000) as pkey; create unique index idx_a on table_a(pkey); create unique index idx_b on table_b(pkey); analyse table_a; analyse table_b; explain select * from table_a a inner join table_b b on a.pkey = b.pkey; QUERY PLAN ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Merge Join (cost=1984.88..2550.42 rows=50001 width=8) Merge Cond: (a.pkey = b.pkey) -> Index Only Scan using idx_a on table_a a (cost=0.00..1864.32 rows=61000 width=4) -> Index Only Scan using idx_b on table_b b (cost=0.00..1531.32 rows=50001 width=4) -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general