well, usually ppl do stuff like SELECT A.* FROM A LEFT JOIN B ON A.id = B.id_of_A WHERE B.X IS NOT NULL but i had a better situation i had multiple left joins and one of the tables had all kind of values where i needed on of them so its like SELECT A.*, C.c1, D.c1 IF (B.value = 'myVal', 1, 0) AS bval FROM A LEFT JOIN B ON A.id = B.id_of_A LEFT JOIN C ON A.id = C.id_of_A LEFT JOIN D ON C.id = D.id_of_C so if u out some extra left joins there OR A->B is 1->n our if is not so good like Table B: id_of_A | value 1 | 1 1 | 2 1 | 3 1 | 4 1 | 5 2 | 4 2 | 5 and what if i want to WHERE this IF (WHERE bval = 1)? maybe some1 thinks right join but that will cut the rest of my info so i need a left join that is a right join ha ha!! well we can make it work like this: SELECT A.*, C.c1, D.c1, B.value FROM A LEFT JOIN B ON A.id = B.id_of_A ...