PHP - Using Session After Printing A Result

I have 64 rows of players and want each User to be able to choose to bookmark an player, as well as unbookmark it too.

I have a bookmark table set up, and each time a User decides to bookmark(+) or unbookmark(-) an player a row is created in the data table.   (Matching the player ID and User ID) That's working fine.  

A query reads the most recent row for each player to determine if there is a + or - button next to each player.  Testing the query and adding some dummy data, that part of it works too.  However, the issue is the initial state, which I want to be a +.  Once I go live, the table will be empty, nothing for the query to return/produce.

How do I create an initial state of a + with no rows and have it not used or swapped out when Users start clicking + or -?

  $query = "SELECT b.id, bookmark,playerID,userID,p.id 
                FROM a_player_bookmark b
                LEFT JOIN a_players p
                ON '". $id ."' = playerID
                WHERE userID = '". $userID ."'&&'". $id ."' = playerID
                ORDER BY b.id desc
                LIMIT 1
                ";

    $results = mysqli_query($con,$query);
    echo mysqli_error($con);
    while($row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($results)) {    

    echo $row['bookmark'];

        if($row['bookmark'] == 0) {
            echo '-'; // this is where a form goes to remove a bookmark
        }       
        else {
            echo '+'; // this is where a form goes to add a bookmark
        }

    }   

I tried to get it with CASE, but I don't think that's the right path.  I also looked at UNION.  I was able to get it to produce an initial state of +, but it still printed the already made up sample data too (so I have three instances of ++ or +-).

 (Players 2, 4 and 4)

Here is the what the UNION query looked like:

	$query = "(SELECT b.id, bookmark,playerID,userID,p.id 
				FROM a_player_bookmark b
				LEFT JOIN a_players p
				ON '". $id ."' = playerID
				
				WHERE userID = '". $userID ."'&&'". $id ."' = playerID
				ORDER BY b.id desc
				LIMIT 1)
			UNION
				(SELECT b.id, bookmark,playerID,userID,p.id 
				FROM a_player_bookmark b
				LEFT JOIN a_players p
				ON '". $id ."' = playerID
				
				WHERE userID = '". $userID ."'
				ORDER BY p.id desc
				LIMIT 1) 
				";