Method and apparatus for reducing forwarding table sizes in flow switches in a flow-based, split-architecture network is described. In an embodiment, a set of flow switches along a flow path is identified to form a switch pool. The forwarding table of only one of the flow switches in the switch pool is configured to have a flow entry that is associated with a particular flow. The flow entry includes a set of match fields for identifying packets belonging to that particular flow, and a set of actions to be performed on the packets belonging to that particular flow.