as detected 440 by the recent entry queue 620 recent entry queue 720 and the branch is a taken branch 730 where the branch repeatedly occurs with a negative offset 740 the recent entry queue 620 can be used to detect this scenario and cause the decoding 310 after the branch to be delayed 760 until the first prediction via the btb 610 is made such that the predicted branch address can be compared against all future decodes 610 by causing a delay 760 in the decode of the pipeline 300 the next iteration of the branch will be predicted by the btb 610 in time given that a btb 610 can have higher latency on start up compared to the latency thereof once it is running the one time delay of 750 or 760 of decode can be enough to allow the branch to be predicted for all future iterations of the current looping pattern the capabilities of the present invention can be implemented in software firmware hardware or some combination thereof as one example one or more aspects of the present invention can be included in an article of manufacture e g one or more computer program products having for.