You aren't wrong. http://sqlfiddle.com/#!15/7eb3a/7 http://sqlfiddle.com/#!15/7eb3a/7 Here's a pretty simple/normalish way to handle the edge cases. This one

You aren't wrong. http://sqlfiddle.com/#!15/7eb3a/7 http://sqlfiddle.com/#!15/7eb3a/7 Here's a pretty simple/normalish way to handle the edge cases. This one (without distinct) is far more consistent (wall-clock-wise, doesn't depend on caches): http://sqlfiddle.com/#!15/7eb3a/9 http://sqlfiddle.com/#!15/7eb3a/9 Note that order 2 is after order 4 in the example schema.