Michael Adams led after the first three-round cycle of the Bilbao "Final Masters", but a strong second cycle and a win in their head-to-head game propelled Levon Aronian to tournament victory.
In round 4, Adams achieved a comfortable draw with Black against Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, which was good news for him, but the bad news was that Aronian won, with Black, a crazy up-and-down game against Maxime Vachier-Lagrave in which all three results were possible around the time control, including especially a win for White.
That left Aronian and Adams tied before facing each other in round 5, and once again Aronian won with Black. Adams was doing fine well into the middlegame, but that changed with his inaccurate 25th and 26th moves. Aronian soon won a pawn and was winning easily even before Adams' blunder/joke/bluff on move 43.
In the last round Adams narrowed the gap with a win over Vachier-Lagrave, but it was too late, as Aronian had already drawn with Mamedyarov to clinch clear first.
Final Standings:
1. Aronian 4/6 (on the 3-1-0 scoring in effect he finished with 10 points)
2. Adams 3.5 (9 points)
3. Mamedyarov 2.5 (5)
4. Vachier-Lagrave 2 (5)