The card-playing enthusiasm of the British aristocracy has added more than one word to the English language. In the 18th century the third Earl of Sandwich, a diplomat and politician of some notoriety nicknamed Jeremy Twitcher, was unwilling to take time out from his game to eat. He asked the waiter to bring him some meat between two slices of bread and millions now use his name daily.

A century later the second Earl of Yarborough offered an interesting bet to his whist-playing friends: a thousand to one against them picking up a hand with no card above a nine. Mathematics was on his side since the odds are 1,827 to 1. There is no record that he ever paid off.

Nowadays players use the word ''yarborough'' loosely, to mean a hand with no high-card points, nearly seven times as likely, or even, more vaguely, a very bad hand. But the distinction between a near-yarborough and the real thing can be vital. On the diagramed deal from the recent world team championships in Miami Beach, an Israeli player found himself making the yarborough bet. At stake was not cash, but a bundle of international match points.

Counting the high-card points in partner's hand is important for effective defense, and is particularly easy when the declarer has made a limited opening bid. West was Shaya Levit, and he did some simple arithmetic when he led a club and the dummy appeared.

South's opening bid showed at least 15 high-card points in his style, and Levit was looking at 11 in the dummy and 14 in his own hand. That left East with exactly zero.

But there are zeros and zeros. Did East have a true yarborough, or a pseudo-yarborough that included, perhaps, the spade ten? West decided to bet on this possibility and won his bet, armed with far more information than the declarer.

Obviously South could have made nine tricks by finessing in diamonds and staying away from hearts. But he did not know, as the defenders did, which finesses were due to succeed. He won the first trick with the jack in dummy and ran the heart nine, losing to the jack.

The moment of truth had arrived for Levit: Any routine play was doomed to failure. A low spade lead might worry South if East held the ten, but the contract would inevitably succeed: Any play South tried would work.

The lead Levit chose was diabolical: The spade jack. South now felt sure that the ten was on his left, and covering with the king looked dangerous. East might win with the ace and return the suit.

South therefore made the normal play: Low from dummy, and win with the queen. He tried a diamond finesse successfully, but could not be sure of his ground there. East would be very likely to hold up the king if he held that card.

So South tried another heart finesse and it proved to be another loser. West was now on lead in this position:

Levit as West now led the spade four, and South was set up for the kill. Predictably he played low from dummy and was considerably deflated when East produced the ten. He returned the suit and West took two more spade tricks to defeat the game.

In the replay the South player in the same contract made 11 tricks. Levit had not only defended brilliantly. He had become the first person since the second Earl to make a profit by betting against a yarborough.