Let $a, b, c, d, e, f$ be non-negative real numbers satisfying $a+b+c+d+e+f=6$. Find the maximal possible value of

$$
a b c+b c d+c d e+d e f+e f a+f a b
$$

and determine all 6-tuples $(a, b, c, d, e, f)$ for which this maximal value is achieved.

Answer: 8 .
If we set $a=b=c=2, d=e=f=0$, then the given expression is equal to 8 . We will show that this is the maximal value. Applying the inequality between arithmetic and geometric mean we obtain

$$
\begin{aligned}
8 & =\left(\frac{(a+d)+(b+e)+(c+f)}{3}\right)^{3} \geq(a+d)(b+e)(c+f) \\
& =(a b c+b c d+c d e+d e f+e f a+f a b)+(a c e+b d f),
\end{aligned}
$$

so we see that $a b c+b c d+c d e+d e f+e f a+f a b \leq 8$ and the maximal value 8 is achieved when $a+d=b+e=c+f$ (and then the common value is 2 because $a+b+c+d+$ $e+f=6)$ and $a c e=b d f=0$, which can be written as $(a, b, c, d, e, f)=(a, b, c, 2-a, 2-$ $b, 2-c)$ with $a c(2-b)=b(2-a)(2-c)=0$. From this it follows that $(a, b, c)$ must have one of the forms $(0,0, t),(0, t, 2),(t, 2,2),(2,2, t),(2, t, 0)$ or $(t, 0,0)$. Therefore the maximum is achieved for the 6 -tuples $(a, b, c, d, e, f)=(0,0, t, 2,2,2-t)$, where $0 \leq t \leq 2$, and its cyclic permutations.