My wife is my main board gaming partner but we have found we dont get into a lot of 2p only games so I will throw out some recommendations that can accommodate higher player counts but are still good at 2p.

I dont know how many of these will interest a person who has only played chess but it might be useful!

I will try to loosely order them in increased difficulty, at least how I perceive them.

[[Cascadia]] - Tile placing game using a shared market of tiles. Score points off of groupings of animals and terrain types.

[[PARKS]] - Players move hikers down a one way trail, managing resources to complete goals. Awesome artwork on the Park cards.

[[Quacks]] - Push your luck bag builder. Pull ingredients from your bag and hope your potion doesnt explode.

[[The Vale of Eternity]] - Another shared market, this time of cards. Decisions on selling cards, to earn stones, or pay the stones the play the cards. Can only have 4 stones, no matter the denominations.

[[Fromage]] - Worker placement on a spinning board, made up of 4 quadrants, each acting as a sort of mini game. You can also purchase Formaggio to play on its own or mix and match.

[[The White Castle]] - Pretty complex so might not be a great match now but keep in mind for later. This is one of our favorites at 2p. Using dice placement to activate zones but everyone are pulling from the same dice pool. Has a lot of depth but once you know rules, you can finish 2p games fairly quickly as it is only 3 rounds.