diff --git a/oak-core/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/plugins/document/rdb/RDBDocumentStore.java b/oak-core/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/plugins/document/rdb/RDBDocumentStore.java
index 30ee3d0..e1b1d18 100755
--- a/oak-core/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/plugins/document/rdb/RDBDocumentStore.java
+++ b/oak-core/src/main/java/org/apache/jackrabbit/oak/plugins/document/rdb/RDBDocumentStore.java
@@ -332,12 +332,6 @@ public class RDBDocumentStore implements DocumentStore {
         // bulk update requires two DB requests, so if we have <= 2 operations
         // it's better to send them sequentially
         while (operationsToCover.size() > 2) {
-            // We should try to insert documents only during the first
-            // iteration. In the 2nd and 3rd iterations we only deal with
-            // conflicting documents, so they already exist in the database
-            // and there's no point in inserting them.
-            boolean upsert = i == 0;
-
             if (i++ == 3) {
                 // operations that conflicted in 3 consecutive bulk
                 // updates should be applied sequentially
@@ -345,7 +339,7 @@ public class RDBDocumentStore implements DocumentStore {
             }
 
             for (List<UpdateOp> partition : partition(newArrayList(operationsToCover.values()), CHUNKSIZE)) {
-                Map<UpdateOp, T> successfulUpdates = bulkUpdate(collection, partition, oldDocs, upsert);
+                Map<UpdateOp, T> successfulUpdates = bulkUpdate(collection, partition, oldDocs, true);
                 results.putAll(successfulUpdates);
                 operationsToCover.values().removeAll(successfulUpdates.keySet());
             }