Question

Would someone explain why I can’t seem to use a WHERE clause on my AS variable (not sure what those are actually called.

if i do something like WHERE a.n = gameone in the same exact place it works.

Can i not use a WHERE clause on a var thats created like AVG(b.r) AS fra ?

If i can. how can i?

SELECT
  a.id, a.n, a.t, a.d,
  AVG(b.r) AS fra, COUNT(b.id) as tvotes
FROM `games` a
LEFT JOIN `games_ratings` b
ON a.id = b.id
WHERE fra >= 2
GROUP BY a.id
ORDER BY a.ts
DESC LIMIT 0, 50

Answer 1

No, the values being selected are not in scope for WHERE because which rows are selected depends on the WHERE. If you really want to do a condition on them, use HAVING but note that HAVING clauses are not optimized.

See the MySQL documentation on SELECT for more information on HAVING.