in reply to Re^2: (OT) MySQL query to limit and sort
in thread (OT) MySQL query to limit and sort

As I already commented in Re: (OT) MySQL query to limit and sort, the sort on id is already exhaustive, meaning that sorting on total doesn't change anything. That is, every id value is different, so Total is never considered as a sorting criterion.
Remember that Order by foo, bar desc, baz is similar to this in Perl:
sort { $a->{foo} cmp $b->{foo} || $b->{bar} cmp $a->{bar} || $a->{baz} cmp $b->{baz} }
If all the "foo" fields are distinct, the sort short-circuits and never considers bar or baz.

And that's exactly why I offered the sub-select as a solution: first grab the 10 most recent id's, then sort those on Total. You have to do the ordering in two steps, no way around that.