Given a Banach Space $X$, a densely defined linear operator $A$, one can define an adjoint of $A$, $A':X'\to X'$ (Here $X'$ is dual of $X$) as follows:
$$ \phi\in D(A'),\; A'(\phi)=\psi \iff \phi(Ax)=\psi(x) \;\; \forall x\in D(A) $$
One can check that if domain of $A$ is dense, then this uniquely defines $\psi$ on whole of $X$ (by Hahn Banach).
On the other hand, if $X$ is additionaly a Hilbert space, then one defines a Hilbert adjoint $A^{*}$ via
$$ x\in D(A^{*}),\; A^{*}(x)=y \iff \langle x,Az\rangle = \langle y,z\rangle \;\; \forall z\in D(A) $$
But apparently, in the setting of Hilbert space Riesz Representation theorem identifies each element of $X$ with that of $X'$ via conjugate linear isometry $x\mapsto \langle \cdot,x\rangle$. Upon realizing this, we can reformulate the definition of $A'$ as follows:
$$ \langle \cdot,x\rangle \in D(A'),\; A'(\langle \cdot,x\rangle)=\langle \cdot,y\rangle\iff \langle Az,x\rangle=\langle z,y\rangle \;\; \forall z\in D(A) $$
This gives an identification of $A'$ with an operator $B$ on $X$, defined by $Bx=y$ via above relation. That is, $\langle Az,x\rangle=\langle z,Bx\rangle$ or in other words, $\overline{\langle x,Az\rangle}=\overline{\langle Bx,z\rangle}$ whence $\langle x,Az \rangle=\langle Bx,z\rangle$. So $B=A^{*}$
So it seems that different definitions of adjoints coincide via Riesz representation lemma, but why is Hilbert adjoint defined a bit differently from that of $B$? (although they are equivalent via conjugate symmetry of inner product), is it just a convention, or am I missing something?