How about using self-joining:
CREATE TABLE mytable (person, groupname, age);
INSERT INTO mytable VALUES('Bob',1,32);
INSERT INTO mytable VALUES('Jill',1,34);
INSERT INTO mytable VALUES('Shawn',1,42);
INSERT INTO mytable VALUES('Jake',2,29);
INSERT INTO mytable VALUES('Paul',2,36);
INSERT INTO mytable VALUES('Laura',2,39);
SELECT a.* FROM mytable AS a
LEFT JOIN mytable AS a2
ON a.groupname = a2.groupname AND a.age <= a2.age
GROUP BY a.person
HAVING COUNT(*) <= 2
ORDER BY a.groupname, a.age DESC;
gives me:
a.person a.groupname a.age
---------- ----------- ----------
Shawn 1 42
Jill 1 34
Laura 2 39
Paul 2 36
I was strongly inspired by the answer from Bill Karwin to Select top 10 records for each category
Also, I'm using SQLite, but this should work on MySQL.
Another thing: in the above, I replaced the group column with a groupname column for convenience.
Edit:
Following-up on the OP's comment regarding missing tie results, I incremented on snuffin's answer to show all the ties. This means that if the last ones are ties, more than 2 rows can be returned, as shown below:
.headers on
.mode column
CREATE TABLE foo (person, groupname, age);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('Paul',2,36);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('Laura',2,39);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('Joe',2,36);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('Bob',1,32);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('Jill',1,34);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('Shawn',1,42);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('Jake',2,29);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('James',2,15);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('Fred',1,12);
INSERT INTO foo VALUES('Chuck',3,112);
SELECT a.person, a.groupname, a.age
FROM foo AS a
WHERE a.age >= (SELECT MIN(b.age)
FROM foo AS b
WHERE (SELECT COUNT(*)
FROM foo AS c
WHERE c.groupname = b.groupname AND c.age >= b.age) <= 2
GROUP BY b.groupname)
ORDER BY a.groupname ASC, a.age DESC;
gives me:
person groupname age
---------- ---------- ----------
Shawn 1 42
Jill 1 34
Laura 2 39
Paul 2 36
Joe 2 36
Chuck 3 112