My desk is:

id  home  datetime     player   resource
---|-----|------------|--------|---------
1  | 10  | 04/03/2009 | john   | 399 
2  | 11  | 04/03/2009 | juliet | 244
5  | 12  | 04/03/2009 | borat  | 555
3  | 10  | 03/03/2009 | john   | 300
4  | 11  | 03/03/2009 | juliet | 200
6  | 12  | 03/03/2009 | borat  | 500
7  | 13  | 24/12/2008 | borat  | 600
8  | 13  | 01/01/2009 | borat  | 700

I need to choose a different home with the maximum datetime.

The result will be:

id  home  datetime     player   resource 
---|-----|------------|--------|---------
1  | 10  | 04/03/2009 | john   | 399
2  | 11  | 04/03/2009 | juliet | 244
5  | 12  | 04/03/2009 | borat  | 555
8  | 13  | 01/01/2009 | borat  | 700

I tried:

-- 1 ..by the MySQL manual: 

SELECT DISTINCT
  home,
  id,
  datetime AS dt,
  player,
  resource
FROM topten t1
WHERE datetime = (SELECT
  MAX(t2.datetime)
FROM topten t2
GROUP BY home)
GROUP BY datetime
ORDER BY datetime DESC

It doesn't work though the database holds 187, but the result set has 130 rows. The result includes some duplicates of home.

-- 2 ..join

SELECT
  s1.id,
  s1.home,
  s1.datetime,
  s1.player,
  s1.resource
FROM topten s1
JOIN (SELECT
  id,
  MAX(datetime) AS dt
FROM topten
GROUP BY id) AS s2
  ON s1.id = s2.id
ORDER BY datetime 

no Provide all records.

-- 3 ..something exotic: 

There are various results.

#1st floor

SELECT c1, c2, c3, c4, c5 FROM table1 WHERE c3 = (select max(c3) from table)

SELECT * FROM table1 WHERE c3 = (select max(c3) from table1)

#2nd floor

For SQL Server, try the following:

WITH cte AS (
   SELECT home, MAX(year) AS year FROM Table1 GROUP BY home
)
SELECT * FROM Table1 a INNER JOIN cte ON a.home = cte.home AND a.year = cte.year

#3rd floor

This is the MySQL version. Only one entry is printed, and there is a duplicate MAX (datetime) in one group.

You can test it here http://www.sqlfiddle.com/#!2/0a4ae/1

sample data

mysql> SELECT * from topten;
+------+------+---------------------+--------+----------+
| id   | home | datetime            | player | resource |
+------+------+---------------------+--------+----------+
|    1 |   10 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | john   |      399 |
|    2 |   11 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | juliet |      244 |
|    3 |   10 | 2009-03-03 00:00:00 | john   |      300 |
|    4 |   11 | 2009-03-03 00:00:00 | juliet |      200 |
|    5 |   12 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | borat  |      555 |
|    6 |   12 | 2009-03-03 00:00:00 | borat  |      500 |
|    7 |   13 | 2008-12-24 00:00:00 | borat  |      600 |
|    8 |   13 | 2009-01-01 00:00:00 | borat  |      700 |
|    9 |   10 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | borat  |      700 |
|   10 |   11 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | borat  |      700 |
|   12 |   12 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | borat  |      700 |
+------+------+---------------------+--------+----------+

MySQL version with user variables

SELECT *
FROM (
    SELECT ord.*,
        IF (@prev_home = ord.home, 0, 1) AS is_first_appear,
        @prev_home := ord.home
    FROM (
        SELECT t1.id, t1.home, t1.player, t1.resource
        FROM topten t1
        INNER JOIN (
            SELECT home, MAX(datetime) AS mx_dt
            FROM topten
            GROUP BY home
          ) x ON t1.home = x.home AND t1.datetime = x.mx_dt
        ORDER BY home
    ) ord, (SELECT @prev_home := 0, @seq := 0) init
) y
WHERE is_first_appear = 1;
+------+------+--------+----------+-----------------+------------------------+
| id   | home | player | resource | is_first_appear | @prev_home := ord.home |
+------+------+--------+----------+-----------------+------------------------+
|    9 |   10 | borat  |      700 |               1 |                     10 |
|   10 |   11 | borat  |      700 |               1 |                     11 |
|   12 |   12 | borat  |      700 |               1 |                     12 |
|    8 |   13 | borat  |      700 |               1 |                     13 |
+------+------+--------+----------+-----------------+------------------------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)

Accept the exit of the answer

SELECT tt.*
FROM topten tt
INNER JOIN
    (
    SELECT home, MAX(datetime) AS MaxDateTime
    FROM topten
    GROUP BY home
) groupedtt ON tt.home = groupedtt.home AND tt.datetime = groupedtt.MaxDateTime
+------+------+---------------------+--------+----------+
| id   | home | datetime            | player | resource |
+------+------+---------------------+--------+----------+
|    1 |   10 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | john   |      399 |
|    2 |   11 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | juliet |      244 |
|    5 |   12 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | borat  |      555 |
|    8 |   13 | 2009-01-01 00:00:00 | borat  |      700 |
|    9 |   10 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | borat  |      700 |
|   10 |   11 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | borat  |      700 |
|   12 |   12 | 2009-04-03 00:00:00 | borat  |      700 |
+------+------+---------------------+--------+----------+
7 rows in set (0.00 sec)

#4th floor

You can also try this operation, and the performance will be better for large table query. It works when there are no more than two records for each house and their dates are different. A better general MySQL query is Michael La Voie's query above.

SELECT t1.id, t1.home, t1.date, t1.player, t1.resource
FROM   t_scores_1 t1 
INNER JOIN t_scores_1 t2
   ON t1.home = t2.home
WHERE t1.date > t2.date

Or try it in the case of Postgres or a database providing analysis function

SELECT t.* FROM 
(SELECT t1.id, t1.home, t1.date, t1.player, t1.resource
  , row_number() over (partition by t1.home order by t1.date desc) rw
 FROM   topten t1 
 INNER JOIN topten t2
   ON t1.home = t2.home
 WHERE t1.date > t2.date 
) t
WHERE t.rw = 1

#5th floor

The fastest MySQL solution, no internal query, no GROUP BY:

SELECT m.*                    -- get the row that contains the max value
FROM topten m                 -- "m" from "max"
    LEFT JOIN topten b        -- "b" from "bigger"
        ON m.home = b.home    -- match "max" row with "bigger" row by `home`
        AND m.datetime < b.datetime           -- want "bigger" than "max"
WHERE b.datetime IS NULL      -- keep only if there is no bigger than max

explain:

Use the home column to connect the table to itself. Using LEFT JOIN ensures that all rows in table m appear in the result set. Matches b that are not in the table will have column b represented by NULL S.

Another condition on the JOIN requires that only rows with a value greater than m on the datetime column of b be matched.

Using the data published in the problem, the LEFT JOIN will produce the following pairs:

+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------+
|              the row from `m`            |    the matching row from `b`   |
|------------------------------------------|--------------------------------|
| id  home  datetime     player   resource | id    home   datetime      ... |
|----|-----|------------|--------|---------|------|------|------------|-----|
| 1  | 10  | 04/03/2009 | john   | 399     | NULL | NULL | NULL       | ... | *
| 2  | 11  | 04/03/2009 | juliet | 244     | NULL | NULL | NULL       | ... | *
| 5  | 12  | 04/03/2009 | borat  | 555     | NULL | NULL | NULL       | ... | *
| 3  | 10  | 03/03/2009 | john   | 300     | 1    | 10   | 04/03/2009 | ... |
| 4  | 11  | 03/03/2009 | juliet | 200     | 2    | 11   | 04/03/2009 | ... |
| 6  | 12  | 03/03/2009 | borat  | 500     | 5    | 12   | 04/03/2009 | ... |
| 7  | 13  | 24/12/2008 | borat  | 600     | 8    | 13   | 01/01/2009 | ... |
| 8  | 13  | 01/01/2009 | borat  | 700     | NULL | NULL | NULL       | ... | *
+------------------------------------------+--------------------------------+

Finally, the WHERE clause retains only NULL pairs in column b (marked with * in the table above); this means that the row selected from m has the maximum value in the datetime column due to the second condition in the JOIN clause.

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