I have a query which involves a full-text search like this:


 SELECT TOP 30 PersonId,
 PersonParentId,
 PersonName,
 PersonPostCode
 FROM dbo.People
 WHERE PersonDeletionDate IS NULL
 AND PersonCustomerId = 24
 AND CONTAINS(ContactFullText, '"mr" AND "ch*"')
 AND PersonGroupId IN(197, 206, 186, 198)
 ORDER BY PersonParentId,
 PersonName;

This generates two main plans, one is very fast in all cases, the other is very slow in most cases.

I have experimented with this query such that the FT search is not included and what I found is that the row estimates are always way lower than they should be.

If I run ```update statistics...with fullscan``` I still see extremely inaccurate row estimates from NC index seek operations in the execution plan.

When the row estimates are low enough, a loop join is selected, which is normally very slow (30+ seconds). Higher estimates seem to produce a good plan involving a merge join instead of a loop join.

Why is SQL Server still not estimating the rowcounts despite still having up to date statistics?

The plan: https://www.brentozar.com/pastetheplan/?id=rkXtE0jzX

When I remove the ```CONTAINS``` part, thereby omitting the FullText search, the query is fast, but the row estimate for the index seek is still 1 estimated, 2195 actual.

On @Kin's advice, I used CONTAINSTABLE, which ran instantly and produced the following plan: https://www.brentozar.com/pastetheplan/?id=S1hKainzQ
Interesting that there is no Full Text search operator.

Containstable requires ``RANK`` to produce the same result set in this case I've used ```AND RANK > 0``` in the ```WHERE``` to produce the results I want, which produces this plan: https://www.brentozar.com/pastetheplan/?id=B1U7AA2zm

My only question now is about why row estimates are still inaccurate but I care less now that my FT queries seem significantly faster and more reliable. Very pleased! 
https://www.brentozar.com/pastetheplan/?id=B1U7AA2zm

@EvanCarroll stats histogram here: https://pastebin.com/p7s0NvX5