How to Drive Out Your Opponent’s Ace in Bridge

In bridge, you can create winning tricks in a suit, even if you don’t have the ace. When you have all the honors in a suit except the ace, you can attack that suit early and drive out the ace from your opponent’s hand.
Lead an honor card in the suit in which you’re missing the ace.

To get rid of the ace when you have all the honors except the ace, lead the highest honor. (If the equal honors are in the dummy where everyone can see them, which one to play is optional.) So, if you have the KQJ, lead the king to drive out the ace.

If you lead a low card, such as the 6, 7, or 8, your opponent doesn’t have to play the ace to take the trick. He can simply take the trick with a lower card, such as the 9 or 10, and he still has the ace!

Continue playing the suit until your opponents play the ace and take the trick.

After the ace is out of the way, use your remaining equal honor cards to take sure tricks. Driving out the ace is a great way of setting up extra tricks. The cards in this figure provide an example of a suit you can attack to drive out the ace.

You can’t count a single sure spade trick because your opponent (East) has the ♠A. Yet the four spades in the dummy — ♠KQJ10 — are extremely powerful. (Any suit that contains four honor cards is considered powerful.)

Say that the lead is in your hand from the preceding trick, and you lead a low spade (the lowest spade you have — in this case, the ♠3). West, seeing the dummy has very strong spades, plays her lowest card, the ♠2; you play the ♠10 from the dummy; and East decides to win the trick with the ♠A. You may have lost the lead, but you have also driven out the ♠A. The dummy remains with the ♠KQJ, all winning tricks. You have established three sure spade tricks where none existed.

Driving out an opponent’s ace is a fundamental and strategic play in bridge, aimed at removing the opponent’s high - ranking ace to establish your own lower - ranking cards as winners. This technique is crucial for developing tricks and ensuring the success of your contract.
When you hold a suit with strong potential but are blocked by the opponent’s ace, driving out that ace becomes a priority. The process typically involves leading a card from your hand or dummy in that suit, forcing the opponent to play their ace to win the trick. Once the ace is played, your remaining cards in the suit can then take tricks unimpeded.
Timing is key here. You need to assess the overall strength of your hand, the distribution of suits, and the likely positions of the ace before deciding when to initiate this play. Sometimes, it’s best to drive out the ace early to set up your tricks before the opponents can establish theirs. Other times, you might need to delay, first taking care of potential losers in other suits or preserving entries to the hand that will benefit from the established suit.
Also, considering the opponents’ possible holdings and playing style can help. If you suspect a particular opponent holds the ace, you can tailor your lead to force them to play it, thereby gaining control of the suit for your side. Mastering the art of driving out the ace is essential for any bridge player looking to improve their trick - taking ability and overall strategy at the table.

BEST. GAME. EVER. I've been playing for 300 hours and I'm still not bored. Worth every penny.

The endgame grind is real. It's just a number going up, but my brain loves the dopamine hit.

I want to live in this game world.

The progression system is poorly thought out.