WARNING! The following post talks about GERBER. Gerber is a bid used by more experienced players. If you are a new player do NOT bother reading this post. When you have played a bit more and know a bit more you can learn Gerber. For now, do not bother.

Gerber -- A Summary

This post is designed to summarize all the previous posts on Gerber. Please read the following posts to see the information in detail:
Gerber - An Introduction
Gerber - To Bid or Not to Bid?
Gerber or 4NT Quantitative?
Gerber -- Asking for Kings

Gerber is a convention bridge players use to ask their Partner how many Aces they hold after the Partner has made a natural bid of NT either at the beginning or the ending of the auction. In these auctions, a jump bid to 4♣ says nothing about the ♣ suit -- it is asking their Partner how many Aces they hold. Bridge players call this 4♣ bid Gerber.

• Gerber can be bid after an opening bid of NT
• Gerber can be bid after a NT response
• Gerber can be bid after a NT rebid
• Gerber can be bid after Stayman has been bid
• Gerber can be bid after making a Jacoby Transfer
• Gerber can be bid after Partner made a NT Overcall

What are the responses to Gerber?

4♦	Partner I have either zero or all four Aces
4♥	Partner I have one Ace
4♠	Partner I have two Aces
4NT	Partner I have three Aces

Since you do not know which Aces Partner has you should NOT bid Gerber if you have a void in a suit OR a useless doubleton.

Many players think you MUST ask for Aces in order to bid a slam. This is not true. You only ask for Aces if you need to know how many Aces Partner has in their hand. If you do NOT need to know that information then don't ask for it.

Once the Partnership has gone through Gerber to ask their Partner for the number of Aces they hold, they can continue bidding Gerber if they want to know the number of Kings. In order to do this the Partnership MUST hold ALL the Aces. You do not ask Partner for the number of Kings they hold if the partnership is missing an Ace. If you cannot bid a small slam after going through Gerber and finding out the Partnership is off one Ace then you shouldn't have bid Gerber in the first place.

After getting a response from bidding 4♣, a bid of 5♣ is now asking for the number of KINGS Partner holds. Note that this means that the Partnership CANNOT sign off in 5♣ after bidding Gerber. The responses are:

5♦	Partner I have either zero or all four Kings
5♥	Partner I have one King
5♠	Partner I have two Kings
5NT	Partner I have three Kings