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 card 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.

Yarborough meaning: a bridge hand of 13 cards which contains no card higher than a 9.