MySQL: Getting a row number (ranking) for a specific row

Question

I have a users table that has a column called money_sent. I want to order this table by money_sent in descending order, and then find

Answer 1

How about:

SELECT count(*) FROM users WHERE money_sent < (
    SELECT money_sent FROM users WHERE user = 'joe'
);

Answer 2

If you also want to get the user's row along with that user's rank, you can use something like this:

SELECT u1.*, COUNT(u2.user) 
FROM users u1
  LEFT OUTER JOIN users as u2 ON (u1.money_sent < u2.money_sent)
GROUP BY u1.user;

Answer 3

SELECT Row,user, money_sent
FROM (SELECT @row := @row + 1 AS Row, user, money_sent 
       FROM table1 order by money_sent desc) 
As derived1