I have a table t containing games.  Each game has a winner_id and loser_id.
What I want in the end is a table showing each player_id, number of wins, 
and number of loses.

Here's table t:

winner_id | loser_id
----------+---------
1         | 2
1         | 2
1         | 3
2         | 1
2         | 3

select winner_id as id, count(*) as wins from t group by winner_id
gives me table p:

id | wins
---+-----
1  | 3
2  | 2

select loser_id as id, count(*) as loses from t group by loser_id
gives me table q:

id | loses
---+------
1  | 1
2  | 2
3  | 2

select id, wins, loses from p full outer join q on p.id=q.id
gives me table r:

id | wins | loses
---+------+------
1  | 3    | 1
2  | 2    | 2
3  | null | 2

Which is what I want...except mysql 5 doesn't support outer join!
The above query with inner join would get me

id | wins | loses
---+------+------
1  | 3    | 1
2  | 2    | 2

and NOT include player with id=3 because he hasn't both won AND lost
some games (he's only lost so far).

I got around it by doing this:

select p.id, p.wins, q.loses from
	(select winner_id as id, count(*) as wins from t group by winner_id) p
left outer join
	(select loser_id as id, count(*) as loses from t group by loser_id) q
on p.id=q.id
union
select p.id, p.wins, q.loses from
	(select winner_id as id, count(*) as wins  from t group by winner_id) p
right outer join
	(select loser_id as id, count(*) as loses from t group by loser_id) q
on p.id=q.id

Yeah you read that right: (p LEFT outer join q) union (p RIGHT outer join q)

And it works.

And I feel like a dirtbag.

Tell me there's a better way to do this, WITHOUT using outer joins since MySQL 5 doesn't have them, and WITHOUT saying "you should have been using postgres from the get-go".