After watching "Across The Sea", it's clear that the game Jacob and his brother were playing is SENET.
An ancient Egyptian game (whose original rules were lost in antiquity), but apparently it became a game that had religious overtones that had to do with guiding your soul through the underworld for ultimate salvation.
See these two references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senethttp://www.gamesmuseum.uwaterloo.ca/Archives/Piccione/index.htmlSome interesting passages:
"The Egyptians believed that in death they would join the sun god on his bark as it set in the western horizon at dusk. The deceased and the sun god would then journey together through the subterranean regions of the underworld. Here dwelt a host of divinities and the souls of deceased people who were judged for their sins and consequently rewarded or punished. The reward would be food, drink and eternal life with Ra, the sun god; the punishment, torture and eventual annihilation."
"Square 27 depicted the "Waters of Chaos" over which the netherworld bark floated as it rose into heaven at dawn. Sinners, denied a place in the bark, were drowned in these waters; thus, as the words of one gaming text aptly showed, square 27 was the ultimate senet pitfall: "I seize his gamepieces so that he might drown together with his gamepieces. I throw him into the water." Draughtsmen who landed on it had to be removed from the board. "
