Strongly correlated two-dimensional electronic systems subject to a perpendicular magnetic field at lowest Landau level (LLL) filling factors: 1/2, 1/4 and 1/6, are believed to be composite-fermion (CF) Fermi liquid phases. Even though a Bose Laughlin wave function cannot describe these filling factors, we investigate whether such a wave function provides a lower energy bound to the true CF Fermi liquid energies. By using Monte Carlo simulations in disk geometry we compute the Bose Laughlin energies and compare them to corresponding results for the spin-polarized LLL CF Fermi liquid state and avalable data from the literature. We find the unexpected result that, for filling factors ν = 1/4 and 1/6, the Bose Laughlin ground-state energy is practically identical to the true CF liquid energy while this is not the case at ν = 1/2 where the Bose Laughlin ground-state energy is sizeably lower than the energy of the CF Fermi liquid state. © EDP Sciences.