diff --git a/ceilometer/storage/mongo/utils.py b/ceilometer/storage/mongo/utils.py
index fe337651..6b8cca25 100644
--- a/ceilometer/storage/mongo/utils.py
+++ b/ceilometer/storage/mongo/utils.py
@@ -188,7 +188,7 @@ class ConnectionPool(object):
             try:
                 client = pymongo.MongoClient(url, safe=True)
             except pymongo.errors.ConnectionFailure as e:
-                if max_retries >= 0 and attempts >= max_retries:
+                if 0 <= max_retries <= attempts:
                     LOG.error(_('Unable to connect to the database after '
                                 '%(retries)d retries. Giving up.') %
                               {'retries': max_retries})