Simple problem... I hope

I'm a total newbie using a very simple PHP script to pull nicknames and scores from a MySQL database, to display in an html scoreboard, but I'm getting an error message each time :-(

This is the piece of code that's causing the problem:

$query = "SELECT nickname,score FROM sms_billiards ORDER BY score DESC limit 20";

$result = @mysql_query($query);

$numPlayers = mysql_num_rows($result);

for($count=0; $count<$numPlayers; $count++)
{
$nick = mysql_result($result,$count,"players");

$score = mysql_result($result,$count,"scores");
?>
<tr>
<td width="40">
<div align="left"><b><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#FFCC00"><?php echo($count+1); ?></font></b></div>
</td>
<td width="225">
<div align="left"><b><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#FFCC00"><?php echo($nick); ?></font></b></div>
</td>
<td width="225">
<div align="left"><b><font face="Verdana" size="2" color="#FFCC00"><?php echo($score); ?></font></b></div>
</td>
</tr>
<?php
}
?>

It keeps giving me the following message:

Warning: mysql_num_rows(): supplied argument is not a valid MySQL result resource in c:dhoybinapachehtdocsrich2.php on line 112

Line 112 is the line: $numPlayers = mysql_num_rows($result);

ANY help much appreciated.

rich@mousebreaker.co.uk

Have you selected a database? Either way,
try replacing:

with this:

This will give you a description of what is wrong with you're query.

Excellent. Identified the problem.

Thanks for your help :-)