There is no need to trick query optimizer, just common sense and understanding of rdbms engine. The query seems pretty standard and often occuring problem with

There is no need to trick query optimizer, just common sense and understanding of rdbms engine. The query seems pretty standard and often occuring problem with nested queries. Every JOIN and nested query grows computation due to cartesian combination, so having your predicates as narrow and specific as possible is a must. Also Nested Loop is a kiss of death for your query performance