Bartok is a game in the 'crazy eights' group - in other words, it's like Uno. I play a simple set of rules like this:
In one game we had the "Sorry" rule, where if you did something against the rules and another person gave you a card before you picked one up yourself, then you had to say "Sorry" to them. Not doing so counted as an illegal action... This continued until we had the "You're Welcome" rule, where the person being said Sorry to as a result of the Sorry rule had to say "You're Welcome" to the Sorry-sayer. Not doing so also counted as an illegal action... Anything that gets players interacting usually works well.
Of course, with only two players you need a bit more creativity. Two player Uno is possible, but it tends toward 'runs' of one player consecutively playing because 'skip', 'reverse' and 'draw two' are all deemed to miss the other player. The flexibility of Bartok allows you to go for keeping play going between players consistently. I also like the idea of giving each new rule a name and having to invoke it when playing, leading to a dialogue like that from Tom Stoppard's play "The Real Inspector Hound":
1: I ruff
2: I huff
1: I bluff
2: I bark
1: I twist
2: I knip one
1: Snap
2: You're in spoon
1: Oh? Damn.
2: I advance
3: I fold
1: What are you doing here?
But maybe that's just my Mornington Crescent playing sensibilities coming through.
Otherwise, there's a huge list of two-player games at what seems to be the ultimate resource for card games, John McLeod's website. There's even a version of Cripple Mister Onion - don't use the http://jump.to/cmo link, it's infested with adware. You'd think these people would at least detect that I'm running Linux and haven't got a frigging registry, so not only can't I download some software to scan it, but your ad that pretends to do so and says I have 47 errors in my registry makes me want to offer you up to Cthulhu as a plaything. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
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