New B&M player - looking at cards, chip management

[kong98]

I've just started playing live, and boy do I love it! I was hoping someone could help me with a few things:

1. Looking at my cards... I know how to peek at them with 2 hands (forming a tent and looking through the hole between my hands. But I find it incredibly awkward to get into this position. I have my chips stacked directly in front of me, so my arms are coming in on both sides of the chips. My last game I had a big stack of chips out front (big problem [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] ), so I ended up looking at my cards way out in front of me.

Should I be stacking my chips to the side so I have room to squeeze my cards next to them? I wasn't sure I had room for this, as I was on the end (seat 2?) and we had a big guy in the middle squeezing us out to the sides.

2. Also, am I managing my chip stacks OK? We're playing 3/6 with $1 chips. I kept them in stacks of 20. I'd bought in for a rack of $100, and was now up to $200-250. Should I have colored up or just kept stacking them in an ever-expanding pile of domination? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Thanks!
Kent

PS: A while back I read a quote from a B&M poster about how live games were "softer than you ever thought possible". Whoever you were, thanks for helping me get the courage to get out of the house and try it out!