Milen > I have tried with first_rows_10 and first_rows_1 ( first_rows_10) or the >optimizer is still using the old execution plan (first FTS on T_FZG_SA >table). The interesting part is that using hint FIRST_ROWS_1 the CBO >doesn't even try to recalculated the cost (effectively ignoring the hint) I'm sorry, I gave you a partially wrong information :-( The problem is, with the new first row optimizer, that the INIT.ORA parameter takes as values FIRST_ROWS_n but the hint has the form FIRST_ROWS(n). HTH Chris -- //www.freelists.org/webpage/oracle-l