The "Let's Make a Deal" Paradox

[SteveDallas]

Ummm... let's see...
You'd need to get all the questions in Jeopardy except a $100 one... that would be $8900. The last $100 question would be the Daily Double... you'd bet the whole shebang and enter Double Jeopardy with $17800.

You'd then proceed to get all the Double Jeopardy questions except for two $200 ones. That would be $17600, added to your take from the first round would give you $35400.

You'd then hit the penultimate question, a Daily Double, bet it all, and have $70800. And then the last question, the final Daily Double, another bet of everything, and you enter Final Jeopardy with $141600.

In Final Jeopardy, you bet it all once again and leave with a cool $283200.


But that's the best possible placement of the Daily Doubles. (I'm not even sure if they ever put them in the top row.) If you had the worst case scenario, you'd hit it on a $500 question and it would be your first question... so you'd end up with $500 after answering it correctly, then run the table, and enter Double Jeopardy with $9000. You'd then hit the two daily doubles under $1000 spaces as your first two Double Jeopardy questions, and have $36000. All the rest of the squares are worth $16000 for a total of $52000. Then you have $104000 after winning your Final Jeopardy bet.

What did I miss??