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LOS ANGELES--Of all the new ideas, games, people, and business models you are likely to encounter on the E3 show floor this year, there's one that can truly be described as novel. For the first time, Yahoo! will have a presence among the Activisions and Tecmos. And if you want to know why, blame it on poker.

"We think that it's [a game] that can cross over into many of areas, and something we can really do a lot with," Yahoo! Games general manager Geoff Graber told GameSpot when the division's pride and joy, the cross-platform, multiplayer Yahoo! Poker was demoed recently in San Francisco.

Graber previously worked at Yahoo! Mobile, so that might explain Yahoo! Games' reason for getting behind its new poker game, one that links mobile and tethered PC gamers in multiplayer turn-based poker games. "It's a game that's got so much buzz around it; it's casual, yet it's got an audience of many different types of people."

Is the E3 Yahoo! a match made in gamer heaven? "We're just getting started with Poker," Graber told us in the days leading up to E3.

GameSpot: What are the numbers at today, Geoff?

Geoff Graber: We have more than 23 million users each month coming to our site.

GS: And the level of sophistication?

GG: They're mostly what we consider casual gamers.

GS: Why the move into the realm of the core gamer?

GG: Because we know that they actually do come to Yahoo! Games. They like using a lot of our other properties, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Movies, Mail, or My Yahoo! They are very important audience and we believe we can serve [them] very well with our services through Yahoo! Games.

GS: What's to prevent you from monetizing the casual gamer today?

GG: I think they will pay for it in a lot of cases--if they find something they really like. They'll also spend a lot of time playing, which means that we can monetize them in many ways. We find ways of making money today through advertising, and directly, through premium services. One of the new services is mobile…and there's a host of them on the PC, and others that are going to become available in the future. To me, there really aren't too many challenges out there if you keep your options open and don't try to force everybody down one particular path.

GS: What have you learned about Yahoo! gamers? What do you know about their habits, who are they, what they seek?

GG: The great thing about Yahoo! Games is we have so many different types of users. For instance, we have a lot of women in their 30s and 40s, we have a lot of younger guys in their 20s playing Yahoo! Pool. In other games we have teenagers, we have kids, we have senior citizens…a lot of them play in leagues together, in clubs.

We've got a lot of different people and they each like their own types of games. I think that's really the thing that they love to have with Yahoo!, the community experience. It's the one tie that brings them all together all the time.

GS: As you move to mobile, are you going to compete for existing mobile phone users who are already consumers of games, or are you going to promote gaming among new subscribers?

GG: There are new users coming on, getting a phone for the very first time. Yahoo! Games, and the Yahoo! brand is perfect for them. We're going to be bringing a whole bunch of new users to trying mobile games for the first time. And the fact that we have multiplayer mobile-to-PC-connected games is going to be a very natural fit for that market, because they're going to be able to play with the same community that they play with on the PC. So they're going to be used to playing the same games in the same community, games they know they're comfortable with, and [they'll] come online and play together.

GS: Which applications do you think are going to drive growth for Yahoo! Games?

GG: The classics, the neo classics that people really love. Those are the games that people like to play. Games like Yahoo! Poker are going to be big, and Yahoo! Chess, and others that we'll have coming out over the next month and year.

GS: How is Yahoo! going to compete with video game giants getting into the space like Disney, Square Enix, and EA?

GG: It's hard these days not to compete one way or another with somebody, some bigger companies. But in general we've got our clear areas of focus and areas of strength and I think they do as well. I think they're making different kinds of games than we do. There is some crossover. We could compete in some ways, and may help each other in other ways. But we're focused on our strengths, which is our community, and leveraging that large base that we have--which is the largest one online.

GS: Why poker?

GG: It's obviously a game that is very popular right now. It's a game that's got so much buzz around it. It's casual and yet it's got an audience of many different types of people. We think that it's something that can cross over into a lot of areas and something we can really do a lot with. We're leveraging our mobile-to-PC multiplayer technology, leveraging Yahoo! avatars and Yahoo! Messenger so you can play with friends online, between your PC and your mobile phone.

GS: Do you see any disconnect in the fact that the PC poker player does not pay to play, but the mobile player does? Have you questioned if that's going to raise a conflict in the mobile gamer's mind?

GG: I think just people are used to paying for content on their mobile phone [and] I don't see a conflict at all. I think it's just the normal thing. And what makes it more compelling is that you have the chance to play on the PC and really play as much as you want, and then also you can take it with you if you want.

GS: What are you aiming to accomplish with your E3 presence?

GG: There are 370 million unique users we have each month across our network. Community is the theme that ties everything together at E3--between our multiplayer games, on PC and mobile. And our new video game site is the other big thing we're showing at E3.

We're also showing something completely different, which is a Yahoo! Messenger integration of video games: third-party video games. If your friend is playing, you can see them playing that game and click on the link from your Messenger window and join them in the game, in the same play.

GS: The mantra at E3 is what?

GG: When you want to play, you want to play. You want to make it the best you can, and we think we can help gamers have a much better experience.